View Post

COVID-19 Vendée

While there are no official changes in the status of the rules, the numbers are going up again just slightly due to new variants and increased travel. Do stay vigilant. Wear a mask when in close proximity to others, wash and disinfect your hands, keep your distance. Unless there are significant changes announced by the government or department, this article will not be updated.  We invite you to follow included links for the latest official updates. Have a great summer! Current measures The “vaccination pass” has been suspended Wearing of a mask remains necessary in healthcare facilities, retirement homes, establishments for people with disabilities. when around people who are at high risk of developing serious illness around people who have tested positive and contact cases The mask is no longer compulsory in closed places but remains required in all manner of public passenger transport until May 16th.  Use your best …

View Post

Tourism & hospitality in the Vendée: surviving the immediate future

We have been asked to share our thoughts about whether or not there will be tourism in the Vendée this season. To address this, means we feel it important to address tourism & hospitality in general, as that will inevitably affect what happens in our department. The following are musings and logical thinking as having lived – and survived – 9/11 working for a major airline and related hotel industry, applying the gravity of a pandemic and its possible repercussions. 1/Is Covid-19 here to stay? The answer to this question seems quite logical: as long as the disease spreads and without a vaccine to inoculate the masses, yes, unfortunately Covid-19 is a long-term global health crisis we’ll have to deal with or work around. If we reach back to 9/11/2001, the world came to a standstill in the wake of a shocking terrorism attack that delivered a gut-punch to air …

View Post

Expatriate in lock-down France

In recent years, the thought has crossed my mind many times that if anything could keep me from my mother in Belgium, it might be World War III. Never had I considered a virus-related near-global quarantine. But the very first day of lock down in France my worst nightmare as an expat and as an only child, delivered a punch in the face: my mother, who lives independently, took a nasty tumble down the stairs in the middle of the night. It was the third time she would be in hospital this year, and the eighth time since my husband and I moved to Europe from the US after announcing she didn’t want to fly anymore, anywhere, let alone across the ocean. But when I think back in my expat life of twenty-eight years, it is only the third time that I have experienced a roller-coaster of stress as extreme …