Enchanté, my name is Van and I am a former Parisian living on the French Riviera since 2013.

If you’ve come across this page, it’s because you want to know more about me, so you’ll find out below how I ended up in France’s most beautiful region.

I had discovered the region two years earlier on holiday and fell in love with it. I naively thought that it must be really cool to live at the seaside under the sun and the daily flow of colours. A fantasy for any Parisian like me who lived there for 27 years. In fact, at that time of my life, I was coming to terms with this ultra-urban lifestyle where ego and over-consumption reign supreme. I dreamed of Nature, of simplicity, of horizon… I always dreamed of that… And then one day, in 2013, as if the universe had heard my innocent little thought, I was offered a professional opportunity in Sophia Antipolis, without me expecting it. I didn’t think about it, I quit my job, left my family, friends, sweetheart and went for a new life experience!

This new experience started 10 years ago and I haven’t gone anywhere since. Between the walks by the sea, the mountain hikes in the Mercantour at an altitude of more than 2500 metres, the light 350 days a year, the horizon as far as the eye can see, the perched villages… Once you’ve had a taste of that, it’s too hard to leave. Even if sometimes I must admit that I miss Parisian life, its dynamism, its museums, its exhibitions…

Choosing is apparently giving up, so I chose to stay in the south and at the same time, I opened this blog to share with you all my discoveries, my spots, my good addresses, my life experiences in Nice and the French Riviera.