16 September 2008

A few Medieval Villages

Things are going well for both of us here in Villefranche. Language training has been pretty full on, so we come home exhausted most days, but we are really enjoying it. I can't believe we've got less than 2 weeks to go with our course here.

We had fantastic weekend & Monday, as the school had a break from classes and took us on a sightseeing trip.



On Sunday we visited the beautiful village of Eze (a view from the top of the village)


Eze village on top of the hill (taken from our boat trip last week)
a narrow winding street within Eze village


a very cool fortress village called St Paul de Vence we visited on Monday with our School


another medieval village we visited on Monday, called Tourettes-sur-Loup


the happy tourists


moi, posing with errr yes, a violet ice cream!

12 September 2008

Our little boat trip

Last night we went on a cruise with our language training school. We had a great boat ride from the port at which we are staying, Villefranche, around to the coast to Monaco. The journey took about an hour and on the way we went past Bono's sea side batch (a rather large pink house!) in Eze sur Mer.



Our beautiful little village on the sea side, Villefranche.




Monaco with its super flash boats.

Au revoir for now,
Paul

08 September 2008

Photos

I have finally sorted out the technical problem with adding our photos - so here are some photos that I've been meaning to add :)


Our luxurious seats/beds in business class on the way from NZ.



Our first weekend in France, where we explored Paris. The Arc de Triomphe (near the NZ Embassy!) and a local market.



The magnificent view from our apartment in Villefranche, where we are based for the next 3 weeks.



Our language training school in Villefranche.

03 September 2008

Bonjour from the South of France

Bonjour,

Firstly I apologise for lack of photos, as we are experiencing technical difficulties - so hope to post some soon!

We arrived safely in Villefranche on Sunday evening on the TGV (the fast train!!). Villefranche is about 15 minutes East of Nice, towards Monaco :) Villefranche is a very beautiful town situated on a very steep hill side - making Wellington look like the flat plains of the Waikato!

The climate is a bit of a shock to the system, with it averaging about 28 degrees, and roughly 16 degrees at night time!!

On Monday we started our language training, which we'll be doing for the next month. It's full time 8:30am-5pm each day (Mon-Fri). We had a good start to the course yesterday with a test to see how competent we are with the French language. Obviously Catherine is quite handy, and I am, well... it's polite to say, a beginner.

Today (Tuesday) we've just finished a first proper day of teaching - my head is about to explode!! One of the biggest challenges is that we are not allowed to speak english all day!!

Very limited internet access here - so I better fly.

Be in touch,
Paul