08 October 2007

Villa Sans Nom

This intrigued me. The House With No Name! An old boy walked out of the front door just after I took this photo but he couldn't enlighten me. Just said the house is very old. It's located in a small street just across from the Museum of Regional Pre-history which I'll show you another time.

Got me thinking about house names and why we choose them? My house is called Lou Milou. Lou is Provençal for 'the' or 'le.' And Milou - well Milou was the dog of my life, an American cocker spaniel, who is now running around in doggy heaven, chasing his ball. What's your house - or apartment building? - called - and why?

12 comments:

  1. When I was a little girl, I named the house of my grandparents Flora&Verona. Flora was the frontyard, full of flowers, and Verona, the backyard, was the "domain" of my grandmother Veronica.
    This photo is very similar to the old buildings of my city, Timisoara, "the little Vienna"...

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Les Chênes", was to have been the chosen name for our home in Adelaide, but I thought that our Aussie friends would think it was 'Les Chiens'. They cannot hear the subleties of the language.

    Ils diraient que, les Benauts sont allés aux chiens.

    In Australia, "gone to the dogs", equates to neglect. A typical and perhaps silly, old anglo-saxon expression, perhaps fallen into disuse.

    So, at the moment, we also have a Villa Sans Nom.
    This villa in Menton is just lovely, and the name and the villa have really become accustomed to one-another.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It isn't as common to name houses here. Skyscrapers, arenas, yes. Small shop buildings and houses, no. Some people do it, though. Sweetbrush, Long View are some I can think of. It's just another thing the French (and English) do better! Do tell us more about the Provençal dialect, too. We recently saw our Chalow off to doggy heaven. She is looking for a cuddle, though, because chasing a ball would be such a dog thing to do. She was, she insists, a girl.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very intriguing. One of the things I love about Europe is the sense of culture and history. Good photo.

    Thanks for visiting Norwich Daily Photo.


    joy
    Your Love Coach

    ReplyDelete
  5. I bet they couldn't think of a name so they just decided to...not name the house! :-D

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our Michigan "estate" is called Fernwoods...Can you guess why ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I didn't pay much attention to the fact that your blog states in the header that Menton is "one of the most beautiful towns on the French Riviera". Having looked at your blog, I can only but fully agree...

    ReplyDelete
  8. hmmmmm. My house doesn't have a name....most houses in America don't have a name...but we refer to our house as the "ranch"....just because it is easy to do. (ex.....we'll meet back at the "ranch".....see you back at the "ranch"....) guess we could just say the house...but .....where is the fun in that?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Naming our houses is uncommon here in Malaysia.
    'No Name' is still a name afterall isn't it :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. My house has no name but many houses here have a Breton name like Ty Bihan (=the small house) or something like that.
    Milou is also the name of Tintin's fox terrier. When I was a little girl, I have had a cocker spaniel too, her name was Noisette.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wonderful photo--love the perspective and that the door is open! Our apartment building is called Presidential Court; it was built in 1924. We have absolutely no idea how it got its name, nor does our management company. Since I work Monday-Friday, I've not had time to even think about where I could go to find out any history about our building.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "Noisette". I really like that and "Milou" just rolls off the tongue. I do still think our house should be names "Les Chenes" - we have 5 regular oak trees and 15 pin oak trees on our property, so "The Oaks" seems appropriate to me. Or perhaps Villa des Chats!!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails