🇫🇷 A first, and very limited, invitation ✨
The first of many weekends to come — a different French town each time, always the same table
I’ve been dreaming something up.
A series of small, intimate weekends, held one at a time, in different corners of France.
Not a course. Not a group tour. Just a handful of you, at my table, living two full days entirely in French with me: breakfast together, real conversation, poems and books read aloud, a museum, and streets to wander with no destination in mind.
Not the towns everyone already knows. The ones that have quietly kept their own rhythm, where the market is still a market and not a photo opportunity, where the person behind the counter remembers your face by the second morning, where French life carries on exactly as it would if no one were watching.
A handful of towns I love, over time — a few of you at a time, never more than 4 or 5.
But the very first one — the one I’m opening the door to right now — starts somewhere that matters to me more than I can easily explain in a headline.
Keep reading. I’ll tell you exactly where, and when, at the end.
An invitation, just for you
Everything we’ve built together at aliceayel.com so far has happened on a screen.
All of it real, and all of it through a window made of glass and pixels.
There’s one thing that window has never let me do: pour you a coffee myself. Watch your face when a poem lands just right. Walk beside you and say nothing for a moment, together, in front of something beautiful.
This isn’t about building a bigger program. It’s about opening the door, a few times a year, to a handful of you at a time — no stage, no curriculum, just the ordinary, unhurried life I already live in French, shared with people who’ve been learning it with me for a while.
This is the first one. If it feels the way I think it will, it won’t be the last.
If you’ve ever gone quiet in French because you were afraid of the mistake before you even made it, this weekend is for you.
There’s no test here, no grade, nothing to get right.
Just two days of speaking, listening, and being understood, at your own pace, until French stops feeling like a performance and starts feeling like yours.
Your weekend with me
Jour 1
Samedi Bienvenue
- Morning – Breakfast at the flat Coffee, bread, croissants, pain au chocolat. The first slow French of the weekend. No agenda — just arriving together.
- 9am–12pm — Conversation, guiding & free writing Guiding toward natural spoken French, reading time, and space to write freely, seated and unhurried.
- Lunch — On your own, flexible – We may well end up at the same table anyway.
- 2pm–6pm — A museum, a goûter, then flânerie We’ll talk about what we see rather than study it. Along the way, a goûter pause — coffee or tea and something sweet, the very French ritual of an afternoon treat. Then, we wander streets and a park I could find blindfolded.
Jour 2
Dimanche Immersion douce
- Morning – Breakfast at the flat The second morning always feels easier than the first.
- 9am–12pm — Reading, discussion & writing A poem, read and talked through together, plus a second free-writing session.
- Lunch — On your own, flexible.
- 2pm–6pm — Wandering, a goûter & closing circle more streets, then a last conversation together: each of us naming one thing we’re taking home.
4 guests. Ever, for this first one.
What’s included:
- Two breakfasts together.
- 14 hours across the weekend, entirely with me.
Conversation, guiding toward natural spoken French, reading, and free writing. - The museum visit.
- A goûter each afternoon
What’s not included — you’ll need to:
- Book your own travel – At your convenience.
- Reserve your own hotel nearby – I’ll send a short list once you’re in.
- Cover your own lunches and dinners – Loose and flexible.
We may well share a table, just not as part of the price.
Where and why here, first?
This first weekend takes place in Pau.
It’s not a random pick.
Pau is where our very first immersion week happened, back in 2023 — the week so many of you still bring up, unprompted, months and years later.
It holds a real place in this community’s heart. It felt right to begin exactly where we began. Pau is exactly the kind of town I described above. It is grounded in real French history and culture, where the food on the table and the people behind the counter are the real thing, not a version built for visitors. It’s the town that first showed me what this could feel like, and it still feels that way.
The museum above is the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
600€ ∙ 28–29 Nov 2026 ∙ Pau
A 200€ deposit secures your seat
The remaining 400€ is due by 26 October 2026
This weekend runs for a minimum of 4 guests.
If we haven’t reached 4 by 26 October 2026, one month before we meet, everyone is refunded in full — no questions, no hard feelings.
Only 4 seats, ever, for this first one!
And the 26 October 2026 cutoff means the sooner you say yes, the sooner I can start planning our table together.
