Voyager de France en Italie

     Hello one and all!

     I am sorry it has been so long since I last wrote a blog. I’m sure you all thought that I had forgotten about my blog. Well you would be right! I have quite the time in Paris and ITALY! Yay!

Mont Blanc in the distance

My first rainy view of Levanto

Alright let’s jump into then!

     I must say, my French is getting better. I am happy to say that I can have a good conversation with a person. Well, as long as I can understand the accent, because that is the hardest part, understanding people. Speaking is so different from writing. They say the writing is harder, but I find it the opposite. Not sure what that says about me… But there is progress!

     I think I have talked about it before, but the way the school system in Paris works is that the kids have six weeks of school and two week vacation. The family usually uses this time to go on a vacation. This time they went to visit their new vacation home in Italy, and they asked me to come along with them.

Panoramic with the kids in the Nunnery Square. Daniel is moving in it.

Beaches in Levanto

     We started Friday after picking up the kids, but the kids passport were forgotten so we had to go back to get them; Putting us 10 minutes behind schedule. We left around 4 in the afternoon and we knew that we would have a six hour drive ahead of us. Cecile hoped to get to the hotel by 10:30. The bad thing was that as soon as we left we hit traffic, and after basically sitting bumper to bumper for an hour we finally started moving faster. At this point it started to rain, and it was the hardest rain that I have ever seen. It didn't stop raining the whole 6 hours. Sure sometimes it was just a sprinkle, but most times it was steady flow of rain. There were a few times where the fog was really thick, and that was scary.

     The kids were watching movies in the back, and Cecile and I were talking in the front. I worked to keep her awake since it was a long drive, in the rain, with it getting darker and darker. She would tell me about the other cities we were driving past, and all the celebrities she has seen while living in Europe.

View of the city from the
 fishing house.

     To get to Italy from France, one needs to drive through Alps and Mont Blanc. There is a tunnel from the French side to the Italian side. The tunnel through the mountain is 7.215 mi long and very secure because in 1999, 39 people died when a transport truck caught fire in the tunnel.

      So they have very high restrictions for this tunnel. Trucks need to be checked, there are emergency exits, reduced speed limits, cars have to stay certain lengths apart, and there are camera and radar to monitor all this. Very intense.

Beautiful churches all over

     After all of that, we made it to the hotel at midnight. We had joined rooms, the kids in one and Cecile and I in the other. That was fine because it was one night and most of the time Cecile used the kids bathroom. All the beds were twin beds though. I thought that was really strange. For breakfast at the hotel they had this apple juice made from sour green apples, and it was so good! When I come home I have all these homemade recipes that I want to try. After breakfast the next morning, we started driving the remainder four hours.

      If you are wondering what it is like to drive from Paris to Italy? Well it's everything you would expect. Lots of open land, farms, little villages, churches in the distance, and castles on the hills. Very beautiful!

     Ok, so here is how our trip went, when Cecile lost her mom she was left with two homes to care for; her childhood home in Milan and the summer apartment in Levanto, Italy. The family is in the final process of selling them. So Levanto was in the first stop on our list. What a beautiful place. The houses are multiple colors, the streets are narrow and small, everyone speaks Italian, and the air feels so fresh.

Time on the beach

     It's really bizarre, learning French, then going to a country where they speak something similar, but I can't understand. I wanted to speak French! Then since we are in a small town Italy, it's very Italian. Not touristy
at all. So everyone speaks only Italian.

     Our time in Levanto was spent walking around town. It's been what Cecile called a "pilgrimage" since she went around to all her old favorite places. The gelato here is fantastic. The kids knew their way around too. We walked by the sea, played soccer in the square. It's was real fun.

Castles in the hills

     All of my time was with the kids. I didn’t mind at all though. Ceciledoes so much, and expects so little from me. I try to jump in and do things for her before she gets a chance to. I find that only fair. They basically let me come along on a family trip where all I do is occupy the kids. Which is not hard because they just play with other kids we find on the beach or the park, and Cecile is always there with us. I have spent a lot of time talking to Cecile and writing in my journal. I can't even begin to express how insane this is for me. Imagine, if you will, going to Italy with an Italian family, who knows the best places to eat and the beaches with the least amount of tourists. Basically, it is the part of Italy that a tourist never gets to see. Then to top it off, the family has money to pay for the best if the best. And they want to pay for me. I love my family, and not because they take me nice places and buy me things, but because they treat me so well, and show me the most amazing things.

     Sunday we walked around the beach. Not through the sand, but up on the sidewalk behind the sand. You could look up into the hills and see them filled with little villages with yellow and orange houses. We played soccer in the open square by the old 17th century nunnery. Oh, and we can hear the church bells from just about everywhere in the village.

     For dinner we went out to have pizza. Now this is expensive Italian restaurant food. I think the pizza melted in my mouth. Wow.

The kids watching the Sharks

     After our week in Levanto, where we cleaned and sold the apartment, we moved onto our second place in Italy. The family has recently purchased a summer home in Forte Dei Marmi. We were there a few days before the workers were finished. Whoa whoa whoa. This place is the same size if not a little bigger than the place in Paris.

The view of the pier from our lunch spot

     It's a three story house that has been modernized to the top gadgets. Everything is new, everything was redesigned. Cecile was very good at managing and knowing how to handle any sort of moving crisis. Meanwhile, I was trying to keep the kids occupied. I really didn't have to do anything, but Cecile didn't want me to help her. She felt bad that she was working me so much. All I had to do was entertain the kids, which was me mostly just watching them play at the park. So I got a trip to the unknown parts of Italy, eating amazing food, staying in very comfortable places, with great people, and in return I supervise the kids? I felt like I was not doing enough. So I help out whenever I can. Set the table, make the beds, set out clothes, and read to the kids... The more I did, the more Cecile is worried she is working me to hard, but the less I do the more I feel useless. So I worked to find a balance. 

     One day Cecile needed to go do some furniture shopping for the new house, and sent me and the kids to the aquarium for the day. That was fun! Things like that are so much fun with kids. They run around and pulled me along to look at all the beautiful fish. Telling me their favorites, and clapping as the dolphins swim quickly by them or the penguins waddle around their tank. Sometimes kids make things that normally wouldn't have interested me, very exciting.

     On Saturday, 5 days before I was to go home, Alain joined us and with both parents there they didn’t have much use for me. Sure I take the kids for several hours a day, but before Cecile needed me all the time. So I got more free time. Which was great! But I had nothing to do. Most times I was a bit lonely.

More Beautiful Churches

     Both of the towns we stayed in were very nice, though I preferred Levanto, and that might be because I had NO internet in Forte Dei Marmi. There were 5 solid days where I didn’t send anything to my family back home. As many of you can imagine, my mom panicked just a bit. It was very hard being cut off from the outside world. The family felt very bad, but there wasn’t much we could do since the internet wouldn’t be installed for another month. Walking around town was OK, but the shopping was SUPER expensive. All the major brand names, so my free time was spent people watching or sitting on the beach writing in my journal. Looking back on it now it was a really nice and relaxing, but at the time I was hard to be cut off.

     The family more than made up for it. They wanted to go visit the neighboring cities in the afternoon. Why? Because I hadn’t seen them. They were very kind to show me around and give me the full Italian experience. I am so grateful for my time here.

     The last day I was in Forte Dei Marmi the 50th anniversary of Lamborghini was happening. 300 Lamborghini's were taking a tour of Europe and they happened to stop for a few days in Forte. It was really exciting to see all the cars there!

     I came back to Paris on my own. Alain was going to drive up with the family so there was no room in the car back. I was given a plane ticket back a few days before the family. They took me to the Pisa airport and when the plane took off I could see the leaning tower out my window. Coming back to Paris was weird. I kept thinking "it's good to be home," but this isn't home. Home is with my family. My family is in Utah. It was nice to be back in a familiar place. It made me realize just how familiar I am with Paris. I can get around this city with no problem now. I know enough French to get by, and I have favorite spots I visit frequently. I was lucky enough to meet up with an old friend from Utah who was visiting with her parents and it was easy for me to show them around. I love history, the art, the culture… It’s a very strange thing for me. I love this city so much.

      Well that is all I have for you this week. I thought it would be great to talk about my wonderful trip to Italy, and I recommend it to anyone who is thinking about driving through Europe! It really was a great experience and I really hope that I can do it again some day. 

Oh, and a side note. I am a few days away from accomplishing another one of my Bucket Lists. I have only a few day (and pages) left in my journal meaning that I have kept a journal going for one year! Good for me that it's the same year I move to Paris! 

Thanks for reading!