No need for a gym pass for those who live in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Their gym has either a sea view or a view of sunlight old houses nestled close to each other. Those who work at the city hall have the pleasure of a light cardio exercise as they walk through the citadel and enter the sunny courtyards on top of the hill. 
Villefranche-sur-Mer’s little alleyways have always been so narrow. The town just grew organically around the little fishing harbor. Rumor is Jean Cocteau used the back streets for a haunting scene in a film. What is known for sure is that he loved the place so much he painted the insides of the fishermen’s chapel in a lovely Picassoesque style. 
Many other movies have been partially filmed here: a James Bond, a Hitchcock movie, and others. Somerset Maugham had an apartment here as he much preferred the quiet waterfront to the busy Nice boardwalk.
I can quite understand why. If I were to concentrate on writing a book, this is the atmosphere I’d prefer, too.
(Villefranche-sur-Mer, France; April 2018)
Lovely ones, apologies for the radio silence. Wow, nearly three months have gone by: an entire summer. And what a summer. One where it has been an everyday challenge to climb high enough to see the bird’s eye view. Instead I have spent most of the time either buried in the trenches or with my head spinning. It is an act of mindfulness to gently pull on that string that we all have attached on top of our heads. You know the one that, if we just keep pulling, lifts us up higher and higher, so that when we are alongside the clouds we actually see the big picture of our lives.
This blue marble 