Back to School

​Tue-Sat, February 3-8, 2026 -- Villefranch-sur-Mer, France

We have now finished our first week at l'institut. This really does seem to be a pretty high-end school. Apparently Princess Charlene, the Princess of Monaco, took classes here a number of years ago. The institute has been around almost as long as Meg and me, 1968, if I remember right.  The director, Frederic, is fantastic, as are all the instructors, of which I think there are five. In addition to teachers, there is a woman, Dina, an administrative assistant; the chef, whose name I've forgotten; a woman, Sarah, who assists him and serves the food; and a man, David, who manages the housing owned by the Insitute. My instructor is Elodie and Meg's with Victor, each with ten students. I was assigned the beginner 2 class and Meg the intermediate 1. 

School terrace

View from school of the Villefranche harbor

Breakfast is served in the cafeteria at 8:20 and then three days a week we all meet in the Grand Salon for a review of the latest news.  Julian, plays a news report on the giant TV and then explains in simple terms what the story was about. Of course there is video footage on the screen as a hint, but newcasters, for me, are almost impossible to understand. Afterwards, we go to our different class rooms.  

The salle a manger (dining room)

In addition, every other day or so, we also spend some time in the "laboratoire." There we sit at desks with headphones and a microphone listening to and responding to different exercises. This can be one of the most useful, but absolutely one of the most difficult parts of the day. First, you don't have much time to respond; second, you have no visual reference; and third you typically need to respond with a different conjugation of the verb, making sure the pronouns and articles are changed correctly, and adjusting the pronunciation as necessary. If you've ever spoken French, you know that for most words the last one, two, or three letters are silent! However, that changes depending on what the word after it is (whether it begins with a vowel or consonant).  This does ultimately make it easier to say and improves the flow, but for a beginner, adding a "z" sound or pronouncing the normally silent t, n, or s at the end of the word is just one more thing to think about.

Lastly, there is the "seance pratique" (practical session), which also take place in the grand salon.  These sessions seem to be scheduled every other day or so and multiple classes are combined. One session was spent on the peculiar way numbers are said in French.  For example, if you want to say 95, you literally say "four twenty fifteen" or quatre-vingt-quinze!  Really? I could go on...

The Grand Salon

Another session reviewed the back and forth of a typical French greeting, such as: Good day (Bonjour), How's it going? (Comment ca va?), It's going well (Ca va bien), What's new? (Quoi de neuf?), Not much (Rien de special), Do you want to grab a drink? (Est-ce que tu veux prendre un verre?), Sorry, I can't. Maybe later (Desolee, je ne peux pas. Peut-etre une autre fois)...

Meg already talked about our place, but it has tons of room for the two of us, and is only 75m from the school, so we could literally roll out of bed and be at the school in less than five minutes. Along with a nice convenient place to stay, we also get breakfast and lunch during the week. Of course we did pay for it, but it's super nice.  Breakfast is self-serve and usually consists of eggs, bread and croissants, yogurt, cheese, granola, jam, juice... They also have a couple fancy coffee machines, which are very heavily used, although, I must say I haven't really been tired in class so far.  Maybe the two or three cafe au laits each day are helping with that. Lunch, for us less advanced students, is quite fancy and served promptly at 12:00. We are assigned tables based on our speaking skill along with one of the instructors who typically ask questions and generally continue the instruction while we eat. The meals have been fantastic, all very French. We always have bread and a few bottles of still and sparkling water. The meal begins with a small salad or soup followed by the main course, fish or meat with a sauce, and then a light dessert. Not shabby.

Not your typical school lunch

Unfortunately, I've still been struggling a little with my digestion!  Too much info for sure, but first I threw up in Morocco, had diarrhea for most of a week, seemed to be cured with the Azithromycin last weekend, but then ended up with the opposite problem making me incredibly uncomfortable for a couple of days. Praise God, that was rectified yesterday morning (Saturday), after which I had a stomach ache and cramps for the rest of the day. Whew. Today I have been fine and hopefully, I can fly right from here on out. Of course, our routines, physical activities, and diets have completely changed since leaving home three weeks ago, so I suppose some adjustment time is in order.  Meg, however, seems to have faired much better in that regard.

Today, for the very first time, we actually got some legitimate aerobic exercise.  I had assembled the bikes on Monday evening after they arrived. They were in fine shape except for a single broken spoke on my rear wheel.  Unfortunately, that meant the wheel was a bit wonky (i.e., not straight) so we ended up going  out to Nice one night to hunt for a bike shop. The first shop didn't do repairs but the second one was the ticket. Today. despite the clouds looming, we headed out for a 30km (~19mi) loop. All in all, this was a fairly easy route compared to what we could have tackled, but that still meant we were climbing for the first 7-8 miles or so.  Half way through we came to the small town of Eze, which was hosting some ultra running event. We decided to act French, so we sat outside a cafe for a while, watching the runners come in. I had a cappuccino and pain au chocolat and Meg had a hot chocolate and croissant. 

Cappuchino and Hot chocolate

Our place

Narrow roads

The rest of the ride was much easier, though none of these roads have any shoulder at all. It's also become quite obvious that this is a pretty posh area, and we haven't even been to Monaco yet, which is less than ten miles away.  To celebrate out first week here (and because we didn't have any food for dinner at the apartment, we went back to the excellent Ramen spot in Nice. 

View of the Mediterranean 

The flat part of the ride

One week behind us