This time last year, David and I had just arrived in Nîmes, having driven from Marseilles where we had spent the night after a long flight from Montreal.

We settled in for a five week stay, planning nothing much more than to pretend to be local French people, enjoying the city, day-tripping to surrounding towns and villages, and just generally getting to know the region a little more.

We had hoped to repeat the experience this year, having so enjoyed the trip and having had the kindest landlord in Nîmes. Obviously, though, we are not travelling this year. We are lucky to have remained healthy and employed in these times of uncertainty and threats to public health and safety.

It’s long been a dream of mine to have a home in Europe to visit a few times a year. We’ve been lucky to have travelled frequently over the years, mainly to France but also to Italy, Spain, Greece, England, as well as Israel.

When possible, we have rented apartments during our vacations, which allowed us experience different cities from the point of view of the locals. This has allowed us to meet neighbours, to visit local markets and purchase fresh food to cook at the apartment, and to indulge for brief periods my dream of home ownership in a foreign country.

Since there will be no travel this year (actually for 2-3 years, in my estimation, because of the covid-19 pandemic), I am retreating to my bookshelf filled with books of other people’s stories of their own lives-as-expats-in-Europe that I’ve had the pleasure to read over the last 20 or so years of personal travel.

As pictured above, they are:

1) Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy (by Frances Mayes)

2) Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy (by Frances Mayes)

3) French Spirits: A House, A Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy (by Jeffrey Greene)

4) The Greek for Love: A Memoir of Corfu (by James Chatto)

5) Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens (by Sofia Zinovieff)

6) Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center (by Michelle Damiani)

7) The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley (by Elizabeth Romer) [*This is one of my favourite books of any genre. I have read it at least three times, and could read it back to back ten times without ever getting bored*]

If I cannot be back in Nîmes this winter, at least I’ll have the words of these authors to help me forget that I broke my arm from falling on the ice two winters ago, and oh yes, that we are deep in the tight grip of a lethal, global pandemic!

Do you have any travel memoir recommendations for me?

Thanks for reading.