First one!
March 22, 2010
Looking towards the hills behind Grasse
Valbonne, a 12th century village, 8 miles north of Cannes is a fantastic place to live! Views to the snow kissed mountains in winter and down to the swanky and sophisticated Cannes on the sparkling waters of the Cote D azur all year around. I have lived here for the last 5 years watched my children cycle to school through the magnificent Valmasque forest and developed a taste for Provencal rose, but only when the sun shines! I have decided to share my experiences with a daily blog to allow others to enjoy a little of what I sense from living here, so a new picture nearly every day (once I have worked out how to post a photo…) is my aim together with local news or gossip or any item of interest that could be of value to anyone considering living here or just coming for a holiday . Todays picture is the winter view from my garden, the snow has stayed a lot longer than most years, inedeed the nearest ski station here in the southern Alps is usually closing for the season about now, but Greoliere Les Neiges still has 1.3 metres of snow, at 1400 metres…that should give you some indication that we have not enjoyed the most settled of winters, much like the rest of Europe, but unusual for this area. In the coing days I will begin to paint the picture of one of the most beautiful and pleasant places to live in the world – Valbonne in the Cote D Azur
Chris France – Currencies Direct, www.currenciesdirect.net/chrisfrance
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Chris France's Blog 
Great!
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Where did you watch the rugby? didnt we do well? but for letting the frogs get away with a forward pass we would have won!
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God Archie, you replied in one word, not what we are used to!
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Hello!
Great blog and better information
Looking forward to receive the latest on Valbonne
Regards
Pepe
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Hi pepe,
Thanks! how do I link this to twitter, facebook and get it into the s earch engines like yahoo?
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As soooo many people are looking at Chris’s blog, perhaps this is the place to announce my very simple effort!….I will change the photo most days so you will have to keep looking at it, every day.
http://allisonneal.wordpress.com/
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Hi Chris, I am going to blog all over you site now I have managed to change my Gravatar, do you like it!
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Wow, how lovely your part of the world is….hey are you any where near the Bandol wine producing area? I’ll skip the Rose, if you haven’t tried a Bandol red you don’t know what your missing…!
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Yes, near Bandol, love their roses, but not tried the red? Not sure if this region isnt too hot for a good red?
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You MUST try it, it’s a full body red, not to be messed with!
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Chris, Great start of a great idea – I’m now homesick! See you in a few weeks. X
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Hey you are getting all techy on us thats great looks fabby !! Cant wait to get a tweet when you update !!
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Got to learn how to tweet yet!!!
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Sit in a tree and perch yourself, it will come naturally!
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A good start and well done Chris.
I arrived in Nice in 1998. My colleague Clive, who himself had been living in Valbonne for some time, advised me to look around Valbonne for property primarily because of the good schooling. Tina my wife and I had just recently been blessed with our baby daughter Eleni. After renting for a year in Mougins we finally purchased our charming small house just outside Valbonne. Despite making some very poor and naive decisions with regard to purchasing a property through a notaire that led us astray …. a long and ongoing story we finally settled down to what has turned out to be a rather special place to live. Three boys later we are now finally selling our house in UK and fully committing to living in France. We love our life style and watching the kids grow up in a lovely environment where we have made good friends and feel very much part of a village environment. I spend much time out of the country and especially look forward to getting home. Tina works hard looking after the children and running the house not to mention having an amazing circle of friends, many of which have come as a result of meeting other parents at school. We are finally trying to sort out our conformity on the house, which again is a bit of a nightmare story but we have made much progress and hope to have things sorted out within the next year. Bureaucracy and the French system beggars belief as we try to tie up all the loose ends. . We will win in the end but at a cost. Southern France has become very expensive to live in of late , due mainly to the strength of the Euro and the fact that just about anything we try to get done comes at a very expensive premium. Every time I try and get a tradesman in the quote tends to always be around a thousand Euros’……….
That all said the question must now be ” would I like to live anywhere else on God’s planet? ” to which I think I must reply a most emphatic NO…… I am a corporate pilot and have travelled extensively all over the world and can honestly say that I feel most settled at home in Valbone together with my family and new friends. The only other place I can honestly say where I have felt like this would be in Oman, in the Middle East where I first met my wife on a lovely beach, fell in love and got married three months later all those many years ago…..
I hope we can remain in Valbonne and watch our kids grow up into adulthood, carry on meeting lovely new friends and enjoy a life that we have come to really enjoy……..
I to am a Valbonne fan and look forward to catching up to reading many more blogs on your Blog site Chris……. Never been into blogging so a new experience for me…….Also looking forward to playing loads of tennis when next back with the 810 810 gang which I have come to really enjoy……..See you soon……
Pash.
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