Diane came up with the name of this blog. It translates into, “travel in the third age“. The troisième âge is the french phrase for elderly or senior citizen. I think the french sounds a lot nicer. Not sure what happened to the deuxième âge. It just went by while I wasn’t watching! Anyway, tomorrow we’re finally leaving for our year in the french speaking countries of France, Belgium, and Switzerland in an attempt to, as Diane says, improve on our bad french. We’re flying Dallas to London to Nice on British Air. After 3 days in Nice, we move Sunday into an apartment near the Institut de Français, a french immersion language school in Villefranche-sur-mer, just to the east of Nice, on the Côte d’Azur. We will be in classes there 5 days a week for a month.

Diane and I have both had an interest for many years in learning french. She took french in high school and college and has a brother, Richard, who has lived in Paris for over 40 years. She has been to France almost every year since her first trip there on her 40th birthday. As for me, my heritage is Belgian. My dad was born there and french, along with flemish, the dutch language spoken in Flanders, was his native tongue. He taught my brother Phillip and me a few french phrases but unfortunately never conversed with us in french. So now I’m trying to learn it on my own.

After one month at the school we will have a rental car and travel to various regions, first in France, spending 2 to 3 weeks in each area, staying in gîtes which are similar to VRBO’s. We will try to limit our stay to small towns and villages where few people speak english. OK. Enough of this “introductory” post. Expect a new posting, hopefully with an occasional photo, about every other week.
Later,
Renie (René)

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