Nikola and Emilie are somewhere in the South of France, during the hottest summer on record, splitting a bottle of cold wine before noon and refusing to check the time. They eat oysters and bulots on the beach, read Dizz Tate under a towel for shade, and try on handmade clothes in a vintage shop that might also be someone’s living room. Most days, they end up back at the house, spraying each other with the hose to stay cool, eating melon with feta, crackers with sardines, and not talking much about what comes next. It’s a version of summer that feels borrowed – a temporary suspension of reality.
It was the hottest summer on record. We read books in silence, hosed each other down, and ate pink lemonade Magnums with our feet in the kiddie pool.
We took the ferry to Cap Ferret and rode a little train across town to a beach lined with graffitied WW2 bunkers. We blindly ordered bulots—sea snails—and were very surprised by the texture.
La Chapelle de Guiraud was dinner and a show—wheat fields glowing at golden hour, a little French cat getting heckled by mockingbirds as she hunted field mice, and the most surprising dish of the night: smoked avocado and crab, served inside a caramelized crab shell.
The best coffee éclair we’ve ever had—officially confirmed by Nikola’s mom, who’s tried them all across France—was at La Pâtisserie de ma Fille in Arcachon.
