Villefranche 4K – 2025 – what a beautiful town, stay and explore it.
[Music] Welcome to Vil Ponch. Queen Victoria is anchored in the bay because Vil Ponch is a tender port. So, if you’re rushing off the boat to get to the walking tour, I wouldn’t rush because you can’t rush off the boat. It actually goes very slowly because of the restrictions they put on it here in France. And secondly, when you do get to the city center, the city hall, there is no walking tour. They made a mistake on the website. We’ll find our own way round. The red top bus, which leaves just up the hill from the port, will take you all the way to Nice, but there’s enough to see in Phil Fron. This citadel was built in 1557, which makes it the 16th century citadel that sits on the hill and it’s been turned into an art gallery. When we visited the gallery, it was the work of Ryan Schneider that was being displayed and it was laid out very artistically and minimalistically. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Look at that two-bedroom apartment with a view of the sea. Half a million euros. In Laort Death is St. Peter’s Chapel which was built by the fishermen and was decorated by Jean Kto. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I’m really surprised the streets aren’t more crowded cuz loads of people got off the tender. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] The Rudobskar dates back to the 14th century. It’s 130 m long. It’s a covered passageway and it acted as a sort of defensive passageway. If you come into Vil Franchare on train, you come in right next to the beach. Do you know I probably would never have come here if I came to the Riviera, but it’s absolutely charming. So, I’m so glad I came on this cruise. The water looks really clear, great for snorkeling. There are loads of children in there enjoying the sea. It looks like you can’t smoke on the beach. I won’t say this for certain, but there are no cigarette butts to be seen. And people seem to be walking across the road to have a cigarette. So, that’s a great bonus. The further you walk along the beach, the more sandy it gets, so that’s worth bearing in mind. We’ve just seen an easy jet plane coming into probably Nice, but this place along the Riviera, you can get a train to, and it’s definitely worth a visit. What a discovery. [Music] [Applause] If you need the tourist office, you’ll find it at the top of the hill by the park, which also has a lovely children’s play area. When you get off your ship, the town is right in front of you. In a Hakio at 9:00, the electric train is very busy and you’re queuing. But at 2:00, it’s begging for customers. So, good idea to leave it till the afternoon. This is the main statue of him. And everywhere there are roads called Napoleon, pictures of Napoleon. This is where he lived and they’re obviously very proud of that. My fourth cruise thriller, Cruise Ship Art Theft, was set partly here in Aakio. Right, let’s get off to the vineyard. We’re going to get the number two cuz it came along first, but the number four will get you closer to the vineyard. So, the bus fair is €1 per person. How fortuitous that we’ve gone on a bus adventure and ended up in a vineyard. someone unlike Eugene to stumble across another glass of wine or in this case six glasses of wine. Do check the opening times of this vineyard cuz it does often close for lunch between 12 and 2. And follow Doris visits. Thank you. Which one do you like best? Queen Victoria. This statue in the middle of Virgin Square is to represent the river which flowed over where the park is, but was then diverted after the great floods in October in 1957. So this is the church in the square of the virgin and it’s beautiful inside. I used to love reading historical novels about the boures. They were so wicked. They all slept with each other. They were incestuous. They poisoned each other. And there are only two pokes from Valencia and one of them was Alexander Bourja. In theory, if I walk to the very end of this park, it’s 47 minutes. I’ll come out to where the shuttle bus stops. The market closes at 3. So, if you want to go and visit the market, you need to go in the morning. We’ve just had a very interesting walking tour where we learned that pa is not the Spanish national dish. It’s from Valencia and the Spanish national dish is Spanish omelette. Also, we learned that paella does not have seafood in it. It has chicken and rabbit and garlic, a little bit of garlic. That is the traditional paella and no charitzo. Jamie Oliver. Kieran Phillips finds his name on a chilling Russian kill list. Billy persuades Kieran that the fight is far from over. They must take the fight away from Miami and head to Russia. Ronnie, a former sleeper agent with deep Russian ties, is crucial, but she refuses to return. Desperate, Kieran recruits a soul band as covert cover to reopen the Baltic cruise route and infiltrate Russia. When the band saxophonyist overdoses, the mission nearly falls apart. Ronnie vanishes without a trace. The team must shepherd the soul band through Miami, Latvia, Rosto in Germany. Helsinki is just the move from the dock to the main town and then onto the Talink ferry. Talin and to Narva, building media buzz to mask their covert passage. But the final obstacle looms. The heavily guarded, tensionfilled border with Russia. Denied legal entry, Kieran and Billy are forced into the shadows, turning to a rogue militia led by Stefan, Ronny’s presumed dead husband, who has a star in Langley. Once an ally, now a merciless opportunist. Stefan offers a chilling alternative. Don’t kill Iris, expose him. Stefan wants to use him as bait to lure Putin and implode the Russian chain of command from within. As loyalties fracture and moral costs skyrocket, Kieran and Billy must gamble everything. Is exposure more dangerous than execution? And who really controls the board? Putin takes the bait, but the expected assassination helicopter is a decoy. Amid the chaos, Kieran evacuates the soul band to Narva Castle for the final defiant concert where locals dance across the forbidden border, the Freedom Bridge, the ultimate revelation. It wasn’t about assassination. The answers are in the unexpected. The Cruz crime novel with espionage out now on Kindle, paperback, and audio book.
Villefranche 4K – 2025 – what a beautiful town, stay and explore it.
You may wonder why we suggested staying, and that is because the open-top hop-on hop-off bus tour takes you to Nice, and excursions take you to Monaco. Both are lovely, but Villefranche is fantastic. Only spoiled a little by the port authority imposing a speed restriction on the tenders, a restriction on the number allowed to be used, and making each wait for any local boat. There is obviously something behind that, which may be why the port is not used as much as it should be.
INDEX
0:00 – Tender
0:42 – red top bus
0:52 – Citadel
2:24 – Old Town
2:34 – Seaman’s Chapel
2:55 – Church on hill
3:25 – streets
3:40 – Covered Passageway
4:13 – Beach – train
5:30 – Ajaccio PREVIEW
6:17 – Valencia Preview
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