Always looking up
What three years in a city surrounded by mountains taught me about belonging
I can still clearly remember those first days in the city I had just moved to.
The first impression of the place I would call home for three years as we arrived by bus from the nearby airport. We arrived on a Sunday evening and the peace and quietude as we stepped outside of the bus was wonderful. Beautiful beige buildings with apartments on top and business in the bottom, the smell and feel of the fresh air in the morning and evening marking the start of the autumn season, slowly seeing the trees lose their foliage.
Hearing the first words and conversations of a language I could not understand and visiting places like a boulangerie or a kebab shop to ask for a pain au chocolat with such thick accents, moments that would become so ordinary with time.
The mix of excitement, confusion and curiosity of a foreign place I had arrived for what I though would be only a year and end up being many more.
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This is a space where I share about mindful travels and life experiences — the places, people and moments that inspire a slower and more intentional way of living.
You’ll find stories about destinations around the world, but also reflections from everyday moments along the way, mostly around Mexico.
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Our first taste of home here was in a hotel apartment right near the station, a spot where the tram was not far to take for school, the city centre or anywhere else we wanted to go. Those first days getting to know new people and trying to make friends through English and Spanish, and slowly learning a few French words, were equally thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Despite the hardness- trying to make yourself understood in a language you barely knew or even trying to fit in groups of friends who had known each other for years- being in a city surrounded by three different mountain ranges was the most inspiring view I could have asked for every single day, reminding me how there is space for everyone in this world.
After spending a week in a hotel room with my cousins and aunt, we finally found, in between school and apartment searching, one that felt right for us all. It was right in one of the main city streets, Jean Jaurès, right by the river where you could see the mountains on most days behind. A big boulevard with trees lining both sides with so much life and range of restaurants, boulangeries and cafés but also with so much quietude, a perfect spot on the first floor of that building that quickly became home.
The building was beautifully old and so well preserved, and with time, we noticed how there were a few marks in some of our apartment walls that took you back in time to moments when this part of France had gone through the hardships of war. As we were making each of the rooms our own, hanging pictures and storing our clothes, we saw a fading David Star carved inside one of the closet walls. For a moment, there was silence, as we understood what these marks were, followed by a sort of sadness and curiosity.
We eventually learnt how this city had been known as the capital of the Resistance during the war, one of only five cities in France to be recognized as such. Those mountains that surrounded us every day had sheltered fighters hiding from the occupation. That star in the closet had a bigger weight to us in a way that was hard to put into words.
As I walked and explored more of the city, always in awe of looking up wherever I went, I came to know how it lies along a river that divides it into two unequal parts: the oldest part of the city on one side, the rest spreading into the plain on the other. We were on the border of both and it was beautiful to frequently see the famous bubble-shaped cable cars ‘les bulles’, climbing from the old city, crossing the river up to a historic fort, right from the entrance to where we lived.
We climbed for the very first time the bastille, that fortress on a hill to see those 360 degree views of the Alps and what a marvel that was. The city below seemed endless between those three mountain ranges, the river dividing everything felt in a way how we were so far away from the home we had been used to and creating a new one that felt equally as beautiful, two worlds divided by a river. It would also feel like a metaphor for what we were about to live, the transition from autumn to winter in this new part of the world to us.
Waking up to see a blanket of white outside your window for the very first time is one of the most spectacular feelings. I will never forget the cold when being outside and the warmth of the sun rays hitting your face as you walk, opposite to everything my body had ever known. Seeing the mountains I had become so used to watching around me, covered completely in snow for the first time, finally using the warm clothes I had gotten to prepare for this season, the warm food so deserving for days like this, the frequent stops at the marchés de Noël, the Christmas markets all around town, to get a hot cup of vin chaud… these all became moments that would forever live in my heart.
How different it all was from everything I had known before. The feeling of preparation for a season that lasts long in places like this, the way everything turns inwards and indoors. The city felt quieter and more intimate during this time, and I was even more grateful for already having a small group of friends to rely on during this moment of the year.
It was on a mid-winter walk day to school, next to some people I came to love, starting to speak in a language I got more comfortable in, that I realized I felt part of this place, part of this moment and this energy. It lasted for three years, a length of time I could have never imagined I would have stayed, though it is today one of the most cherished moments of my life.
How slowly I became accustomed and familiar, and how at ease and in love I was at the end, made the parting even harder. I was not supposed to leave, but circumstances and life sometimes plan for something different to what you envision.
A city and a moment that remains a special part of me and my life. I learnt how every place in the world has its challenges, and how there is beauty in landscapes, in people, in history and unique stories when choose to look close enough. I carry with me that awe of continue looking upwards whenever I visit somewhere both unfamiliar and familiar, because you can always find something beautiful that you had not noticed before or that you wish to see again.
Back then, I frequently sent postcards to friends I had from around the world, and these moments felt deserving to some. Words on how life was feeling like being in this part of France and the transition of living somewhere I had never imagined I would.
Today, I wish I had sent more postcards from those moments and places, to capture more of those feelings in words. Perhaps I would have shared about the beauty of each season, about the struggle that turned to achievement when making friends, how certain shops and people became a sort of refuge or how a kebab day was the most comforting of all.
That is why I have been with the idea of wanting to send a few postcards to some of you.
A postcard a month, from places I have been, places I return to, or places I am discovering for the first time. Just a moment, a feeling, a detail worth remembering. Perhaps the place of the story I share that month. The kind of thing you would write to someone you wish was there with you.
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I write a piece every week on slower stories, mindful travels, and every day moments that tend to stay with you. Reflections on cultural memory, on the places that shape us, and on building a slower life in a fast-moving world.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to have you here.
There’s something really special about connecting with people who share a similar way of seeing the world, or who are simply in search of a more mindful, slower way of living and traveling.