May 9, 2016
Day 7
It’s a travel day. From St. Remy de Provence we travel south to our villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat…”Cap Ferrat”, for short.
First stop, though, was Nice! It’s Cannes Film Festival prep time! The festival starts on May 11th so we’re. We are a couple of days before the festival but already the city is bustling with activity in preparation for the event which goes on until 22 May. It would be fun to be here for the main event but c’est la vie!
After a quick lunch at a little corner cafe–Cafe Cristal–of pizza and coq monsieur et frites, we took a liesurely stroll along the promenade to the site of the festival. No signs of celebrities yet…just some billboards…but there was definitely excitement in the air.
From Nice, we took another side trip to a perfumerie in a little town called Grasse. For a mere 30 Euros, you can make a custom perfume that makes you distinct from anyone esle in the world. The perfumerie, named Molinard, was established in 1849 and has been a manufacturer of perfumes and other good smelling products since then. The history of perfume dates much further back to ancient times and was a necessity to ward off offending your friends and loved ones since bathing was considered dangerous…they thought bathing was a spreader of the plague…and dousing yourself with perfume was a necessary function of living. Whew!
From Grasse, we ended our journey to our villa (I realize that’s a fairly snooty word but that’s what they call it) on Cap Ferrat and felt the effects of the mediterranean winds as we settled in. It’s a lovely place and should serve as a good base for our day trips up and down the coast.
The plan for tomorrow: A tour of a house designed by the female Irish architect Eileen Gray (known for it’s connection to Le Corbusier), Corbusier’s cabin (his chateau by the sea, as he referred to it), and a visit to the little hill town of Eze.
A tout a l’heure (until tomorrow).