Weeks 10 to 13 (France - Mougins)

We arrived in Nice in great spirits.  Big A had sorted the car out and arranged for the Renault rep to collect us from the airport and take us to their centre where we sorted out the final paperwork.  It was a smooth transaction and I recommend anyone who is planning on spending more than 3 months in Europe to explore the benefits of leasing a new car from either Renault, Fiat or Citron. You can only do it for a maximum of 165 days but it works out at around $20 a day for a brand new car with full insurance and GPS Navigation.   We did think about buying a car in the UK but it was difficult to get  it insured and then we would have had the problem of selling it before we left. 

Thanks to GPS “English Jane” we found our way to Le Club Mougins where we would call our two bedroom apartment home for the next 3 weeks. The hotel is very comfortable and the staff have been terrific.  

First day at school 

We’d pre-arranged interviews with two international schools in the area so the day after arriving we set off with Middle and Little A to see the schools.  School A was just beautiful.  Great location, facilities and school grounds but alas no places.  We knew this before we went but thought we might be able to charm them into extending their class numbers for our two little princesses – no such luck!   We were all disappointed but prepared for School B where we knew there were places.  I was sure Big A and the mini A’s would reject it outright due to the absolute stark contrast between the two schools’ first impressions.   Whilst on the edge of bushland, the school is still at the bottom of a purpose built business park.   The primary school has about 5 classrooms with no more than 15 children in each class – so very intimate.  They teach an international curriculum and spend half the day teaching in English and the other half in French.  This partial immersion into the French language should help the girls pick up the language – fingers crossed.  So two days later the girls started school in Ebica and will attend until the end of the French school year in July.   Great news for the girls / not so great news for Big A and his chances of getting another Maserati when we get back (international schools are not cheap)!   

The school day is a long one from 8.30am to 4.30pm.  The girls have 11/2 hours for lunch where they eat a school dinner and play.  On Wednesday the school closes at midday so the girls can either do an activity like golf, horse riding or theater or we can collect them and do something together.  They don’t have a uniform but the school is quite strict (which is actually in keeping with the French attitude towards education).  Putting the girls in school was a decision we made before leaving the UK as it was obvious that the girls would rather hang out with other kids than Big A and I all day and so far, 2 weeks in it seems to have been a great decision.

With the girls gone all day Big A and I then had to consider what we would do to make good use of the next 4 to 5 months.  Before we could romanticise too much about cooking classes or long walks through snow capped mountains, we had to sort out our long term accommodation, bank account, skiing and telecommunications.

The school was dictated by basic geographical criteria but we still wanted to check out the many villages in the area.  There are some stunning places like Valbonne, Biot, Theole Sur Mer, Vence and Saint Paul but we had a pretty tight budget and that limited our options.  We visited an old farm house in Opio which was very remote and to be honest a little “sparse” in its furnishings so really didn’t have a homely feel.  We’d seen a number of properties on the net but most of them were not available for the entire 4 months or were grossly out of our league financially.  Then we ended up finding a lovely house in Valbonne, 3 bedrooms, right in the village, beautifully presented and in an 18^th century stone building.  It was perfect and we agreed the rate with the owner to move in on the 3 March.

Marco Polo Restaurant at Theole Sur Mer

Saint Paul (near Vence)

There are probably 4 standout areas for me so far.  (1) Theole Sur Mer has a restaurant called Marco Polo which is right on the beach.  As it was still winter the place was only 30% occupied on the Wednesday afternoon.  I can’t wait till March when it’s a bit warmer but before the summer rush when we will be able to take advantage of literally stepping from your table onto the sand.  (2) The next is Valbonne.  The research said that Mougins was picturesque, and the old town is, but the rest of Mougins is a bit tired.  Valbonne was the first place we went to that I actually thought represented the postcard view of a French countryside village.  It has a great square and most of the streets are closed off to vehicles.  (3) is Biot as it has some absolutely stunning little areas with 17^th century stone buildings, arches and tiny narrow streets provide the street-scape.  It also has a fantastic square and a great pub called Café de Brun.  (4) Vence and Saint Paul are just exquisite villages and a must see for anyone travelling through the area as they sit perched on a hill (especially Saint Paul),  have the most amazing little cobbled streets and historic buildings.  Vence is closed on Sundays when they respect the day of rest but Saint Paul was buzzing.  

The day to day “odd” things about France include driving on the opposite side of the road,  sitting in the opposite side of the car, stores close on Sundays and for a siesta every day between 12 and 2, restaurants typically open for dinner at 7pm and it is important to always acknowledge a person by saying bonjour.  These are just a few I have picked up and I’m sure there are many more.  So far having only been here 3 weeks I’m loving it and can’t wait for the warmer weather when the South of France comes into its own.

Yesterday was dress up day at school to celebrate carnival  http://www.nicecarnaval.com/en/  and the school breaking up for 2 weeks.  It was absolutely fabulous with the theme of Venice.  Middle and Little A made masks and wore glittery "disco" dresses (because that was the only costume Big A and I could justify spending money on).   Even every teacher dressed up and made an effort and all the kids put on a show of dance.  It was comforting to see that internationally all little ones are the same and that most parents who fork out thousands each year on dance lessons must bemoan their investment!  Middle A's first reaction when she came off the "stage" was "mum we stuffed it up completely!"  The only negative about the afternoon - no wine!   

Now we are off skiing for a week - wish me luck!

 Big A’s Perspecitive (to follow)..  After a fairly uneventful departure and a beautiful flight over a snow covered France we arrived in Nice. It must have been 10 degrees warmer in Nice…yeehaa.

We called the car agency who came to collect us and went to fill in the forms and collect the our brand new little diesel Renault Scenic -incredibly seemless and easy. ..even the GPS seemed fairly easy to operate. 
Just a word on the deal with the car....the company we went through can be found at www.ukandeuropetravel.com. We dealt with a girl called Tracey who was exceptional...very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. We had a few issues with being able to scan copies of passports etc ...a little tough when you are traveling...but in reality I can't thank them enough. I don't know the details but it seems the French government promote the use of Citroen's, Renault's and Peugeot's and are wiling to make them available for a maximum of about 6 months on a lease basis...so you get a brand spanking new car for far less than a rental company will do it...and you get to pick it up and drop it off at different destinations al over Europe....we' picked ours up at Nice Airport and are scheduled to drop it off in Rome in July. There's no way you could get a deal with a rental company for as little as we managed...overall about $25 AUD per day including insurance .....but not fuel!!!

Which reminds me.... the car had absolutely no fuel in it when we picked it up so the first stop was the gas station about 500m up the road. Whoops …no sign for diesel …apparently Gazoil is diesel. So we filled up at 1.5euros per litre and headed off.

Turning right as per the GPS I headed straight down a one-way bus lane before realizing, mounting the median strip and getting in the correct lane. Whoops!

Our next drama wasn’t far away however….we headed towards a toll booth that seemed to have pictures of everything but a man in a booth or cash. I didn’t like the look of the symbol over the first lane we headed down so reversed the car (against the traffic!) back out of one automated both and headed down another lane before realizing our Euro travel cash passport card didn’t work at the toll…nor did any of our credit cards…and we didn’t have any change at all. Luckily we only had about 5 cars behind us!

Finally somebody  came over and gave us some change and we were on our way…..slightly  shaken but not stirred. 20 minutes later we were in Mougins….yeeha…finally, time to relax.

Well our time to relax was brief indeed. We had arranged interviews at 2 schools for the day after we arrived.

One was with the Mougin International School…. we were absolutely gutted there were no places until the following September as this school was seriously good. Kids are taught using the British system and learn French for about 5 hours a week. The teaching staff were friendly, the teaching  facilities, kitchen & dining area and grounds were excellent and the children we met were so polite and friendly…I loved it and wanted to enroll myself!

However, no point shopping if theirs nothing on the shelves so we went to our 2^nd interview somewhat disheartened. EBICA is a bilingual school where the kids spend half their time being taught in French and half in English. The school is tiny…only about 6 classrooms and about 100 kids. When it comes to the outdoor facilities the differences are stark indeed….there is an outdoor play ‘pit’.  However, the admin staff and teachers were so friendly and the school had a lovely feel about it. So we signed up for a trial…the following day!

Getting the kids up for school was a serious struggle. Other than to catch the plane to Nice, we hadn’t had to get up before 9am for months! So we were late on our first day.

And what would we do with ourselves whilst the kids were at school? School goes from 8.30am to 4.30pm….Jesus…the Child Bride and I would have to entertain ourselves! Suffice it to say we arrived at school to pick the girls up an hour early….I was genuinely missing the girls arguing and fighting and was worried they were having an awful time and missed me too much…..but to our amazement both girls loved it. I can’t believe they would rather go to school than hang out with their dad!

Now we just had to find how to pay for it as at 21,000 euros a year in school fees definitely weren’t in my detailed budget of $300/day! So this meant setting up a French bank account and luckily we chose the only bank in the area that didn’t speak English. Two hours later, and after endless uncomfortable silences, Google translations, hand gestures and drawings we left believing we had initiated proceedings although unbeknownst to us we later found out we had to leave a 2000 euro balance in the account, incurred a 100 euro set up fee and an 8 euro a month account keeping fee! However, we convinced ourselves this was the right thing to do and ticked it off the ‘to do’ list.

In reality opening a bank account was a walk in the park in comparison to finding a telecoms provider and a place to live! Telecomms in France is a nightmare in comparison to Australia and the UK. 

The staff at SFR were so completely disinterested in our cause they actually sent us to one of their competitors. And the competitor they sent us to, Orange, were the most incompetent outfit I’d ever come across. Now, I am not one of those travellers that expect the world to speak English…far from it. I actually enjoy it when they don’t so the fact they didn’t speak English made it more difficult…but hey I’d just set up a bank account….surely we could set up a telecoms service…..NO!

After 6 visits, 3 different packages and about 100 euro and the threat of shoving the dongle up the managers arse we finally left the store with an ability to make calls within France for 1 hour a month, send a few text messages within france and have 3 gb of internet capacity….all this for the princely sum of 86 euro ….PER MONTH!!! Apparently Buoygons is the best provider but even the french cant pronounce the company name the name twice so what chance did we have? Pronounced something like BWYG, I don’t actually know of a another major company anywhere else in the world that has a name that is less pronouncable than this!

Anyway, another tick off the to-do list. Next was a place to stay…and once gain Big Daddy came to rescue in the form of a stunning 18^th century stone 3 bedroom house in the centre of the old village of Valbonne. Now Valbonne wasn’t my first choice, albeit a stunning village…but its full of expats. I didn’t come to France to network or to hang out with English speaking foreigners….but the Child Bride won and we sealed the deal to pay 500 euros a week. I was flying through the list now!

So onto the next ….organising a ski trip. None of the girls had ever been skiing before and the school holidays were fast approaching so choosing a resort had a few conditions - it had to be within driving distance from where we lived; it had to be beginner friendly; it had to have snow, and it had to be sunny….unfortunately my first choice Auron was fully booked so we were forced somewhat into booking Isola 2000.  I booked us in to stay at the C2A La Terraces D’Isola for 7 nights - $900 for the week; The 3 girls were all booked into ski school for 6 days - $550….and our ski rental was also completed on-line - $450 for 6 days. I wasn’t sure what ski passes the girls would need so decided to leave this until we arrived. I was on a roll….give me more item for the list…I’m a natural completer!

However, after booking the hotel I checked the small print on the confirmation email…in French naturally….and thought it said something about having to take your own linen, blankets and towels. The opening hours for the hotel reception should be in the guiness book of records…..I think only the Sadam Hussein Fan Club is open less hours than this hotel reception. Not only that but unfortunately the contact number listed for the hotel is also the number they use for credit card payments so you have a greater chance of fathering a child with Tom Cruise than getting through to someone.

Luckily the reception staff at Club Mougins helped us, making at least a dozen attempts before finally managing to confirm our booking and the fact we needed to rent linen and towels and pay for parking….another tick!

Now, before we left Australia I had taken to swimming once a week – usually around 1.5 – 2kms…..not that I’m a big swimmer but I like to convince myself I keep fit so during the 2 weeks since we arrived in Nice I had also located 2 public swimming pools in the area…although both were only 25 m pools. However, even swimming in France has its peculiarities.

I rocked up to the first pool on my list, the most expensive at 6 euros a swim,  with my towel, boardies and goggles. However, the public pool was only open to the public at certain times….2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon….and I was out of luck. The rest of the time the pool is dedicated to schools. So I left somewhat peeved and returned the following day.

The next day I got there on time and was the only patron there so I paid my fee at the reception and entered through some turnstiles into a waiting room type area consisting of a bench, shoes rack, coat rack and a solitary pair of shoes and a jacket. Wow…a change room where men and women got their kits off…these French really are liberal! So I started to peel off the layers and my boots but luckily another man entered the area…..who just took off his shoes and then entered another area. I quickly put my shoes and clothes in my bag and, like a spy on surveillance, followed the man. Finally I’d found the changing area where you get your own cubicle. Great…things were starting t come together, so I got changed and as lockers were 1 euro and I didn’t have any change I followed the other swimmer to the pool area with my exploding bag.

However, as I was just about to enter the pool area I was stopped by someone that appeared to be a cleaner and told in French that I wasn’t allowed to swim in boardies. Of course I didn’t know for sure that was what he was saying but figured it out when I noticed a solitary, tiny sign in the changing room area showing a pair of shorts with a red cross through them!

So I had to get changed again….but not my shoes and head back to the reception area to buy a pair of speedos…what size did I need…Extra Large of course…cant you see? As with most pools they had a decent array of togs for sale but naturally the sale rack didn’t have any other colour left than iridescent blue, or any size above a medium, so medium “fluro” blue it was. Returning to the changing rooms for the second time I squeezed into my new acquired bright blue, tight dick togs and headed for the pool…..wow these were brighter and more snug than I first thought, especially when I walked.

However, by this time somehow another gazillion swimmers had entered the 5 lane 25m pool - most of them bed-wetting pensioners! After 10 laps I was absolutely knackered so dragged myself out of the pool much to the admiring glances of the bed-wetters!