Côte d’Azur Culture

Gliding over Antibes’ bay on a paddleboard, French Lessons sizes up the unusual 2020 season. The pandemic may have deflated the Côte d’Azur’s legendary froth, but in these waters the spectacular and the princely still mingle among simple pleasures and a renewal of humanity.

What’s life is like in the Côte d’Azur during this extraordinary 2020 season?  French Lessons readers want to know.  To answer travelers’ queries, or to bring the season closer to francophiles around the globe, we offer a glimpse of the area from our first days back. 

As the pandemic continues to mushroom and borders come cautiously down, we wave au revoir to a quiet, socially-distanced life in Toronto and thank our lucky stars as we return to Bellevue, our summertime home in France’s Côte d’Azur.  French Lessons returns – ready or not.

As French Lessons wishes readers au revoir until Summer 2020, we share a few stories from this past season that didn’t make our feed.  Gossip, blackout, and glut: Did the springtime omen of nesting doves on Bellevue’s rooftop bring the sort of luck we needed?

It’s called Geoffrey’s of London, but the British commissary of the Côte d’Azur, based here in Antibes, is more than a place to stock up on impossible-to-find essentials and favourite foods.  Is the shop also a reflection of our true selves?

. . . or shall we call this post “Fugue to the Figue”?  When we planted Bellevue’s figuier 13 years ago, we’d unwittingly reconnected our home with its past.  This year’s stupendous crop of figs yields its traditional, French delights – and new heartbreak.

France is known for its fêtes, which pay homage to everything from jazz to the simple chestnut, but one festival is simply out of this world.  Join French Lessons at the biennial Nuit Coupoles Ouverts, the Night of Open Domes, when the Riviera’s research telescopes welcome public eyes.

When French Lessons returned to France this summer, we didn’t know what to expect.  Could the gilets jaunes – the famous demonstrators-turned-vandals – block our taxi on the way to Bellevue?  Had the rebellion ripped the heart from our beloved Antibes?  The answer depends on who you ask.

The end of the Côte d’Azur’s scorching canicule marks the close of French Lesson’s 2018 season.  We look back over the summer months and a fast-paced, so-called agenda de ministre, to highlight some of the season’s fun, intriguing, and jaw-dropping stories that didn’t yet make these pages.

What’s a season of French Lessons without a look behind the scenes at home maintenance?  But far from being a tired subject, Bellevue and all her woes bring out the best stories – even if we always seem to find ourselves at the butt-end of the joke.

From infuriating legalese to unwritten expectations, the rental market is tricky at the best of times.  French Lessons tests the waters in the Côte d’Azur this summer with its quest to hire . . . a cello.  We leave Nice’s top stringed instrument maker humbled and charmed.

Patient drivers and dribbling vehicle speeds are hardly hallmarks of the French Riviera’s autoroutes, but the local government does invite some offenders to courses that try to rehabilitate their skills.  French Lessons welcomes back our speed demon friend Rachael – and her quick wit.