Blogs from Grasse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe

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Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse August 11th 2019

We woke up pondering where our travels should take us today. We had a lovely time in Antibes by the sea and a challenging time driving to Ventimiglia, we thought today would be a great day to visit Cannes the next town West of Antibes. Yes Cannes, home of the international film festival in June. It's another town by the sea and the weather is still hot and very humid so off shore breezes won out. We've become fond of traveling by the local train. We hike down to the Villefranche-sur-Mer Gare, buy our tickets and hop on. While my French in general suffers from lack of proper accent plus the fact that I only know very bare basic words, one area I do exceed in is ordering red wine from the St Emilion region AND ... read more
Staircase and fountain
beautiful umbrellas
Grasse

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse April 27th 2019

This was the last day with the car and we were headed for Grasse, 2 hours from Aix, above the French Riviera. I didn’t mention that our room was not actually in the hotel, it was down the street by the Church and Museum in a separate building, once a single-family residence, now about 6 apartment style rooms owned by the hotel. To get to breakfast we had to walk the grueling ½ a block to the main hotel. We sat at the only table for two to have our coffee, croissant and cheese. At the table next to us was a trio of retired women, discussing their children. One of them kept mention Prineville Oregon, so on our way, out I asked if she was from Oregon, she was in fact from Prineville, said I ... read more
Streets of Grasse
The Road to the Gorge

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse October 9th 2011

An diesem Tag habe ich von Antibes einen Ausflug nach Grasse gemacht, welches für seine Parfummanufakturen berühmt ist.... read more
Kirche in Grasse.
Grasse.
Küste bei Antibes.

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse June 13th 2011

Today we enjoyed a much anticipated drive from Manosque to Grasse via the Gorges du Verdon. Working out which way to tackle the Gorges and deciding both sides of the deep canyon must be included, we came up with a grand Gorges Loop Plan that the guidebook said would take 5-6 hours. We started out early in the hope of also spotting some fields of lavender in flower, but it seemed we are a week or so early for the real blaze of colour that the postcards show. Still, there is sure to be lavender in Italy in a week or so when we are driving there. Back to the Gorges! After driving through hill country our first sighting of the brilliant blue green Lac de Ste-Croix and then the Verdon River emerging from the mouth ... read more
Gorge du Verdon
Lac de Ste-Maries and Verdon River
Moustiers-Ste-Marie

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse May 25th 2011

Provence – Grasse and the Arriere Pays This time we hit the jackpot campsite wise, the beautiful Gorges du Loup in Bar Sur Loup. Our pitch looks down the Loup valley through Cypress and oak trees and up the gorge to its bare limestone peaks. We’ve been here 10 nights now, unable to pull ourselves away from our hillside eyrie, 30 mins to the coast at Antibes, 30 mins to the ski slopes, the perfume capital Grasse on our doorstep (in the supermarket car park today I actually said to Simon “whats that beautiful smell it smells just like men’s aftershave – he pointed out that we were in the world’s fragrance capital, right next to perfumery Fragonard and hmm do I think it might just be…). A playground within sight of the caravan and an ... read more
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Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Grasse April 30th 2011

Grasse is about an hour away by train from Nice. The climate in that area is conducive to the cultivation of flowers so over the last 100 plus years, a number of perfume houses have set up shop in Grasse. Similarly to Monaco, my little iPhone map (although very helpful) didn't really show that going from the train station to the first place I wanted to visit would require climbing something akin to Mount Everest. It only shows up as a small red dotted line called the "Traverse du Train". How lovely ... I thought that I would just be enjoying a lovely little stroll to my favorite perfume house. Instead I blew out my left lung. C'est la vie ... The perfume house that I was very much looking forward to visiting is the Parfum ... read more
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A day in the Perfume capital. Grasse is an old walled city on a mountain which means lots and lots of hills and stairs. Our thighs and butts have been getting a workout. Why would anyone climb mountains for fun? May 6th was a visit to the perfumeries. There are a few here. This is the perfume capital. We listened to a guided tour all in French. We were the only foreigners! Some of you can expect some French perfume and other products when we get home. There is a real Italian influence in this part of France. We love the old, fortressed cities with the narrow, winding streets. Very pretty. Not too many tourists. Having some trouble reading the local map this time. Our easy day turned into 6 hours on our feet trying to ... read more
Pete with his baguette
... did we mention stairs?
Nice place for lunch


Another great day. Apparently the drive to our first stop, Gourdon, was very scenic. We don't know, Pete was trying to keep the mirror on the left hand side of the car, while Neet tested the durability of the Citroen door trims, trying not to look at the drop off into the valley on the left. Actually after the first 10km the roads were pretty good, if the French would just learn to stay on their side of the white line. The scenery was something else. The roads were full of serious cyclist crunching up the steep mountain passes at a fast pace. How they do it I don't know. My guess is some were proffessionals getting ready for the tour - or thats what I wanted to think. Gourdon, Pont du Loup and Tourrette Sur ... read more
Gourdon - Beautiful
Nice View
Time Out For Postcards


Hi All We have internet again. Signal not great but at least we are back in contact. After leaving the safety of our Dutch "protectors" we have now headed off on our own. The Car people in Nice gave us a 30 second lesson on the car - sorry, I exagerate, it was 15 seconds. Then we tentatively hit the road, trying to remember all Hennie's lessons. They did give us directions to the Motorway but neglected to tell us about the Toll. So here we were in our brand new Citroen, reversing across 6 lanes of traffic, because, firstly we picked the auto booth, then we picked the coin booth, but had no coins. They eventually took pity on us and took our 20 Euros, to turn into coins - next time use the far ... read more
Nice - Cote d'Azure
Antibes - Beautiful
Small Boat for Sale




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