This article by Julie Chaizemartin was previously published on The French Quarter Magazine. Luxurious Hotel Metropole Calm and exquisite pleasure reign there. And luxury of course. In the smallest details. At the Metropole Hotel in Monte-Carlo, an invitation to travel begins in the driveway of honor that spreads its Italianate finery as an introduction …

In this guest post (below) by author Jane Dunning, she shares her thoughts on why winter is a great time to visit (and house sit) in Provence. Jane is the author of two novels Thirty-Five Minutes from St Tropez and its sequel Stolen Summer. Her experiences while house sitting in …

In early 2018, when the opportunity to relocate to Provence presented itself Phil Chandler and his partner jumped at the chance to escape from the “rat race” in England. Leaving behind his own successful business in the United Kingdom (UK) Phil is now pursuing a career as a freelance travel …

Chic Hotel Le Saint-Remy After a 20-month construction timeline, Le Saint-Remy opened its doors to hotel guests in August 2018. The 19th-century mansion constructed for Colonel Chambéry with its cour d’honneur (ceremonial courtyard) would have been majestic in its heyday, but more recently it was dilapidated. Didier Rivière leveraged his …

“It feels like a home, an art gallery and a boutique hotel all in one” Avignon, the ancient walled city with the famous “pont,” is situated along the Rhone River on the TGV train line from Paris.  It is the perfect stopover en route to the Côte d’Azur, or can …

Occasionally it’s time to say goodbye to a house. Even if it is one that you built yourselves and where all four (yes 4!) of your children grew-up. Recently, I was hiking with Agathe Forest of Live & Love Provence in the Alpilles. She shared that their family home was on the market so …

By Paula Kane Here it is, the last full weekend of my stint in Provence. The time always whips by and it’s hard to believe I’ve been here just over two months already. This stretch is often punctuated with a wide range of emotions, and this year has been no …

So here it is, the new Aixpress bus. The manufacturers call it an ‘ie-tram’, whereas the Aix mairie refers to it as an ‘autobus’. This reflects the vehicle’s dual use in that it will run inside its designated lane for most of its journey (like a tram) but can also …

Contributor blog post by Jemma: I couldn’t write this post until things had been resolved – or mostly resolved, as the case would be. Even then, I didn’t know if I should bother. It’s France. Everyone expects home maintenance problems. And how can anything be a problem, really, if we’re talking …

Contributor blog post by Jemma: French Lessons has survived a summer that one local friend dubbed “un agenda de ministre.” Even for us non-government ministers, the French expression seemed an appropriate way to characterize our schedule in a country where public spending(as a % of GDP) continues, shall we say, to …