This is Cherbourg. There aren't a lot of grassy areas like this, but up the hill behind our apartment we found this open spot with a beautiful view of the clustered buildings, and beyond, the deep blue of the English Channel.

This is our home for the next 6 months.

One of my favorite things about where we live. Instead of seeing the wall of another building 12 feet from our window, we see this grassy area and an old stone French farm house that someone has turned into a nice home. Trees instead of more buildings. It's nice here.

One of our favorite places to walk is this little roadway, just behind our apartment building. It's cut through a rocky hillside, and the sides are covered with moss, ferns, ivy, mushrooms, and all kinds of other plants. It is called the Chemin des Roquettes, and is actually a street. Cars do drive up and down it, but not often.

A closeup view of part of a small section of the wall. I like the small round leaves on these plants, which we see from one end of the path to the other.

On one of our walks, we found some chestnuts - real ones, that you can (and we did) eat! The coverings look like little green sea urchins.