Betty - Day eight

---

It was sad to say goodbye to our sophisticated apartment in Nice. We had breakfast on our garden balcony, watching lightning-fast swallows shoot across the sky, the outline of their wings curved like a bow. We dressed for a special day. Today, we were eaing at La Columbe d’Or, a restaurant we booked a month in advance.

First of all, we took a walk around St Paul-De-Vence, a walled village overlooking Provence and at a distance, the twinkling sea. The pretty alleyways are full of tourists and what used to be an artists’ town (Renoir, Braque, Chagall, Picasso) now houses art studios, mainly geared toward commercial art and knick-knackery. This was all getting a bit ‘The Rocks Markets’ for us, so we were pleased to discover an antique store, kept by a chic older French lady who took a shine to us and demonstrated her amazing collection of 19th Century walking-stick weapons. I made a very special purchase here. I won’t go into detail, but if you can figure out what a “chapeau-claque” is, you’ve got it!

Lunch was divine, out of the warm sun, under a creeping flowering vine on the terrace, we started with
St Paul - de - Vence
champagne and worked our way through a top-end provencal feast, with the backdrop of a mural by Leger. Afterwards, we perused their impressive private art collection. Back on the road again, merry and sated, we drove to Arles.

Betty

---

Photos

Colombe d'Or
Leger mural behind