Location, Location, Location

We didn't want to choose where we were going to live for a year over the internet, and so we purposely booked our first location on our journey for only 3 months. After we were settled in Dinan, we occasionally looked at other home rentals around France and Europe to start getting ideas to where we were would go next. Originally, we had planned to go directly to Paris after our lease was up in Dinan, but it is very difficult to find a place there for a family of 6 to live on a budget. Since we loved Dinan, we started talking with real estate offices there to find an apartment for us to live in and to use as a base to our travels around Europe. We were turned down by one landlord because of our large family and we were looking to put another application in for a different apartment, but we then realized that we are here on this adventure to see many places and so we decided to look again for an apartment that was large enough to fit us all, close to public transportation, and affordable. After a difficult search, we decided to head south to the French Riviera to the town of Menton, situated between Monaco and Italy.

Grandma King decided to come with us and so we changed her flight to fly back to Utah a few days later from Nice and bought her a train ticket to come with us. On April 23, we left before 6 am by taxi to the train station and bid farewell to our beloved Dinan. We then changed trains in St. Brieuc and headed to Paris from there. Once in Paris, we unfortunately had to take the bus to a different train station (Gare de Lyon) and so we barely made our connection, but we finally made it on our train that took us to our new home in Menton, France.

Our apartment in Menton is half the size of what we had in Dinan and is in desperate need of an update because the decor, furniture, and appliances were fashionably acceptable in the 1970's.

It'll make do for the next five weeks as we use it to store our stuff as we explore the beauty of the Cote d'Azur. As most real estate specialists will say that it's all about the location!

We are loving the sun!

Hello Italy!

There's Monaco in the distance!