Stumbled across this picture this morning..

And it took my breath away.

And you can rent this villa here

When my family lived in the South of France, our house had this view but we were perched higher up and a little more to the left. The house itself was a fantastic mess- built over 4 levels you had to walk down a flight of steps to get into the kitchen, then down another flight into the family room, up another set to get to my bedroom and up yet another flight to access my parents room. In fact the only way for me to get to the kitchen without using the stairs, would have been to walk through the courtyard or walk around the house from the exterior- although I still would have had to walk down the stair directly outside my windows. For you see, my parents chose this house precisely because you could see this view from every room. When my brother and I were first shown the house, my mom took me to my new room, flung open the windows and in a sort of Lion King moment said: “You get to see this view every morning and every morning feel like you own the world.”

We did not get along with the owners of the house. They were a crazy couple who constantly fought with each other and the fact that they owned a house together did not seem to make things easier for them. For some reason, they gave us free reign to alter/improve the house as we saw fit and once my mom found out that the woman didn’t like green, she painted just about anything that needed paint green- forest green for the banister in the dinning room and the stair case leading up to the kitchen and olive green for every square recess detail on all the French windows. And it looked good too! The only time my father protested her painting was when she managed to paint, in one afternoon, our 15 foot chimney a lovely burnt orange color. His problem with the newly painted fireplace stemmed from its shape because it ended up looking like a huge Orangina bottle. My brother and I loved it.

Last July I was lucky enough to meet up with some of my French family in Nice and Monaco for my dad’s birthday. I hadn’t been in the south of France in about 6 years and the experience was unexpected: it was a homecoming. I never knew until then that the closest thing I’ve ever known to a home town was living in the south of France. I spent that extended weekend with a stupid grin on my face realizing just how much I had missed that place and thankful that I still have family living there.

Even if they are French and wear speedos.