I saw these commuters on the way back from Antibes to Nice the other day. They reminded me of our roles, theirs and mine. How much I was paying attention to my milieu and how little they cared about theirs.

There’s a special kind of ache tucked into the end of a short trip — that quiet moment on the way to the airport or on the tarmac where you wish, not dramatically, but deeply, that you’d stayed just a little longer.

Short journeys are often like bursts of joy. They glow like sparklers — bright, immediate, but fleeting. They offer sunsets caught from a café table, the taste of salt on skin after a brief swim, or a conversation that opens and closes like a seashell, never quite finished. Wonderful, yes. But they rarely settle into your bones the way longer trips do. They don’t change you as slowly or as deeply.

And yet, there’s one place that never seems to mind how short my visit is.

The French Riviera — the Côte d’Azur — welcomes me like an old friend who already knows my rhythms. There’s no awkward small talk here, no pressure to rush. The scent of the sea, the warmth of the stone streets, the soft glimmer of lavender light in the late afternoon — it all feels like home, even if it’s been a while.

Nice in particular, with its sun-faded shutters and barefoot elegance, doesn’t ask me to explore everything at once. I can stroll the Promenade des Anglais with a slow heart. I can sit still and sip a cold, blonde beer while the city leans into the sea. I don’t need to conquer anything here. All I have to do is to just show up, breathe, and let the Mediterranean do the rest.