Villa Atalante

Villa Atalante

 

Well here it is, Villa Atalante.   And no, we are not actually making a sitcom.  I don’t know how we did it – a combination of perseverance, combined efforts, and luck.  It is a really beautiful place and I remember the first sign that it was going to be wonderful was when we were being shown the villa by Brian’s agent Florent, and the pressed a button on his key and the wrought iron front gates opened before us. Hahaha – Florent told us that Roman Abramovich is our neighbor and we were joking that we would have a block party and we would be able to say “So guess what Abramovich did when got totally smashed at our pool party??” But… not… haha. We’re so weird. 

So the whole gang is: Hazel -26, Chinese from Canada;  Jonathan – 23, Belgian from Belgium; Sasha – 23, Croatian from Canada; Me – 22; Benjamin – 21, French from Grenoble, France; Olga Maria – 20, Mexican from Mexico; and Isauro – 21, Mexican from Mexico (He is a friend of Olga’s and is such a polite and nice guy – he’s like a younger brother) and so far we all get along pretty well!

So about the Villa:  It is a stone villa (with beautiful ivy crawling everywhere!) and it has a lot of space for living, and we are just down the road from the beach. We have… six bedrooms and each bedroom has it’s own en-suite bathroom and shower, and 2 of them have whirlpool tubs as well.  So there are 9 bathrooms total. Sasha has the biggest room which has doors that open out to the outdoor terrace and she has a king size bed.. or bigger. It’s huge. and massive closets. We have 2 fully equipped kitchens, one on each floor – and I mean fully equipped. We have everything we could ever need and more – Everything from a juicer to a french press coffee maker, to all sorts of knives, wine glasses, china, tart pans and cooking equipment. Yes, I am in heaven. There are windows in the kitchen as well and they open out and when the breeze comes in it’s just wonderful. And we even have a half kitchen outside near the grill. We have a pretty large heated pool, a hot tub, a pool house including a shower stall, a bathroom and a changing room, a pretty decent sized sauna, lawn chairs, two huge outdoor tables and chairs enough for 6 or more to eat dinner on, and a lime tree! We have a ping-pong table, a dart board, a huge yard and garden, statues, an outdoor garage, an alarm system, huge decorative iron gates that open automatically when you let someone in – which you can do from the 2nd floor kitchen as well as the main foyer (as in they ring you, and you can listen to who it is, and there is a surveillance camera where you can see who it is and zoom in. We have 3 bars (one on each floor and one outdoors) and a huge wine rack, 2 smaller wine racks, 2 huge living room/terraces, two dining rooms, a study with a library, a printer, fax/copy machine, and a mini artist/drafting table, a huge front door, a marble staircase, hardwood floors, huge windows, 2 washers and 2 dryers and a room for ironing and washing clothing, a fireplace, several cd/speaker systems thoughout the house if not one in each room (and one in each kitchen!) an outdoor speaker system, remote controls for a/c and stereo devices, lights that come on all over the villa and yard, a sprinkler system!  Best of all, there is a view of Antibes and the mountains, and a view of the Mediterranean. All the windows either have wrought iron and wood doors and shutters or automatic shutters. My room has 2 tall french doors that have two wrought iron and wood doors behind them that open out to the garden, as well as windows just the same that open out to view the backyard and stone arches. We also have a gardner, a pool guy, a plumber, an electricien, and a jack-of-all trades guy so if anything needs fixing we just call our agent, Florent and he sends them over! Crazy…  So…. um now you don’t have to be scared for me, right?

 So a few things that I love:  Eating dinner outside on the terrace watching watching sailboats on the Mediterranean, all of us in the upstairs kitchen making dinner (and making fun of Benjamin’s pasta and cheese every. Single. Day.) listening to the Riviera radio as the breeze blows through the windows and just having a good time, everyone’s (especially Olga, Sasha and Isauro’s laughter while watching Big Bang Theory in the downstairs living room for 6 hours straight – haha Isauro has the most infectious laughter – he reminds me of Alex a little when he laughs.. but you know… just Mexican… and they are about the same age and both such gentlemen. I also love how I can open my French doors in the morning, play music from my laptop, and just relax – or, run out my room across the lawn and jump into the pool! Hahaha. Funny story – I was the first one to run and jump into the pool, and the second I hit the water the alarm went off! It was an alarm for if children accidently fall into the pool when no one is watching – which is really smart to have, but it scared the crap out of me!  We just set it to swim mode and all was fine. =)  I also love my orchid – I had always wanted one but they were too expensive and they are so cheap here! So it brightens my room, along with my sheets! But… not the picture of the three clowns hanging above my head… creepy. Must find something to cover over that soon… I also love playing “find the statues” cause we had to do inventory to make sure everything was there (that took soooo long it is such a big place) and it said there were 4 statues on the property but we could never find the fourth until recently. My favorite is the Lion on the right-hand side. Something else I love – waking up in the early morning after having a coffee in an espresso cup with a croissant smeared with Nutella and walking down to the bus stop and being greeted by a beautiful view of the cap and the Mediterranean, and also – walking half a mile down the street to see the beautiful blue water (all the pictures of the water you see on the side bar that leads you to my Flickr page are from the ½ a mile walk along the rocky beach).  I will keep updating my photos as they come now that I finally have my camera! =) I also posted the fireworks display we saw in Juan les Pins for you (although Olga was the one taking it and I think she forgot that you shouldn’t tilt the camera on its side when taking a video haha)! If you click on the “Slideshow” button on Flickr I personally think it is the best way to view the pictures and the video! Enjoy! ♥

So if you would like my address just let me know, I just decided not to post it online for the world to see is all  =)