Summer is not three calendar months. It is when the air trembles over the asphalt, when a nap at lunchtime seems like a sacred ritual, and a cold watermelon is the only necessary dinner. And there are places where it does not come, but remains. Where even in November you can close your eyes and suddenly feel it - in the creaking of sand under your feet, in the reflection of the sun in a shop window, in the way a stranger pours you iced coffee, although it is +15 outside.

In Nice, for example, summer has soaked into the walls. It is in the blue of the water, which even in winter looks like a postcard, in the terraces of cafes, where elderly men play petanque, not paying attention to the calendar. It is in the Cours Saleya market, where they sell flowers and peaches, even when there is already snow in other countries.

But there are less obvious places. Like that little courtyard in my city, where summer hides between the bricks. There are grapes growing there that no one picks, and there is a bench where it is always warm, even if the thermometer shows otherwise. Or a balcony on the fourteenth floor, where the wind blows cigarette butts, but the sunsets are such that it seems like the whole world is somewhere far away, and here there is only you and this sky.

And summer also lives on the road. Not in traveling with suitcases, but in those spontaneous trips when you decide to turn onto an unknown road simply because it is beautiful there. When you stop at a roadside stand where they sell strawberries in plastic cups, and they turn out to be sweeter than in any restaurant.

But the main thing is that you can carry summer inside you. Remember how the sea smelled in childhood, or how at fifteen you sat on the windowsill and listened to the rain that could not overcome the heat. It is in those moments when you suddenly understand: here it is. Simple. Happiness.