Musings about early retirement with no fixed address
Bordeaux is the 9th largest city in France, but definitely ranks higher in fanciness. The downtown area is large and grand, filled with ornate buildings and extravagant fountains. There are several massive cathedrals and a nice art museum. Everywhere has an upscale feeling. Even the thrift stores are sophisticated. Bordeaux offsets its urbanity with access to multiple large parks and a popular riverwalk as well. But the city’s best feature is definitely its large downtown area.
Toulouse is an attractive pedestrian friendly city filled with parks and split by a river. The downtown is almost fully car free with lots of impressive architecture. Our visit coincided with the start of spring, allowing us to take full advantage of the city parks and enjoy long walks along the waterways. A couple of nice art museums, historic churches, and an incredible day trip to nearby Albi rounded out our experience.
Dijon is a charming city filled with romantic half-timbered buildings and patterned roof tiles. The capital of the Burgundy region in eastern France, it has been a seat of power in the area for over a millennium. Of course Dijon is famous worldwide for the eponymous spicy condiment which was developed here, but mustard is only a minor attraction. It impresses visitors with two cathedrals over 700 years old and an expansive art museum housed in a 600 year old palace. Like many French cities, it features an excellent pedestrian-only downtown. We found it to be pleasant and inviting with unique architecture that captured our attention.
The exquisite French capital is filled with top notch art museums, classical architecture, thriving neighborhoods, massive cathedrals, and large parks. There’s just so much to see and do in Paris and almost all of it feels fancy. The main target of our visit was art and we definitely hit the bullseye often. When not in museums, we were soaking up all of the sights, sounds, and smells of various cathedrals, book stores, thrift shops, and bakeries. We did our best to experience as much as possible and just about wore ourselves out doing so.
Once a regional capital of the Roman Empire, Nîmes boasts a wealth of ancient ruins. Its pedestrian-only downtown buts up against a giant stone arena and one of the best preserved Roman temples in the world. Nearby is a massive 2000 year old aqueduct that is a true engineering marvel. Due to the plethora of Roman history in and around the city, Nîmes has billed itself as “the French Rome”. Walking around feels like stepping back in time.
Lyon is the third largest city in France and one of its culinary capitals. It has a plethora of ornate buildings and several massive fountains. There’s a world class art museum and cathedral too. During our 4 weeks we also explored many pedestrian streets, old ruins, an awesome urban park, and plenty of vintage clothing stores. But most of our activity consisted of simply walking around gawking at the classic French architecture. That never got old.
Grenoble is an ideal blend of mountains and livability. The 16th largest French commune has Alpine views in every direction, but the city itself is almost entirely flat. This pairing gives Grenoble the feel of being in the mountains, but it doesn’t leave you out of breath when walking or biking. The downtown is almost entirely car free making it a peaceful place to stroll. The city is filled with parks and great multi-use paths too. The best of those paths follow the Isère River which winds through town. All of this combines to make Grenoble just about perfect.
Katie and I recently hit our 5 year nomadic retirement anniversary. In the last half decade, we have traveled to 4 continents, visited 19 foreign countries, and lived in 39 different cities. During this time we experienced multiple typhoons and earthquakes, a major wildfire, and an ice skating mishap that resulted in a broken wrist. We’ve shopped at dozens of local markets, enjoyed numerous museums, and taken countless pictures of street art. And after paying for all of these adventures, our portfolio is larger than when we started, despite us not earning a single dime.
Situated at more than 11,000 feet above sea level, the former Inca capital is filled with spectacular mountain views and stunning landscapes. Moving around at this elevation is no joke though. Even walking up minor hills left us panting and out of breath. But once we were better acclimated to the elevation, we found Cusco to be a marvelous place to hike. These hikes always included some Inca ruins, which are everywhere in the area and a great addition to any trek. We also used Cusco as a jumping off point to visit the famous Machu Picchu, which is breathtaking in its own way.
Lima greeted us with its customary overcast skies and many warm smiles. We found the city to be very friendly, especially for one of its size. The ocean views were hard to beat and we enjoyed abundant fresh produce. Our apartment in the Miraflores neighborhood was close to multiple parks, including one with scores of friendly cats. There are a handful of impressive museums too. We did have air quality problems for about a third of our month-long stay and we found it necessary to alter our normal behavior because of it. But the cloudiness and pollution weren’t enough to completely mar our stay, so overall the silver linings won out.
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