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Published: April 30th 2011
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Graffiti at entrance of Grasse 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 Fragonard. I had visited the Museum of Perfume in Paris in 2009 and knew that their museum extended to a collection here in Grasse. The museum itself contains different perfume bottles, travel kits and instruments/machinery used in the making of perfume.
You are also able to take a guided tour through the factory. Because it was Saturday, the workers were not present
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Graffiti at entrance of Grasse but this is still an active factory. They make all of the perfumes here in Grasse. The Eaux de Toilettes, soaps and other products are made at other facilties. So my two bottles that I had brought back last time from Paris were made here on this spot. I could not leave, of course, without stocking up!!
Just a few feet away, there is the Musée Provencale du Costume et du Bijoux. It is a small museum that showcases beautiful traditional dresses. They were incredibly well preserved. There is also a small collection of jewellry.
From there, I would then stop in to the Musée Fragonard. Jean-Honoré Fragonard is the namesake of the perfume house but he himself was not a perfumer. He was an artist and the perfume house was simply named by the founder in honour of him. The Musée therefore showcases some of his paintings as well as those of some other members of his family.
I would then continue just walkng the side streets. Grasse is very and the side streets are incredibly narrow. It just seemed like one big labyrinth to me!
After a lunch of beef carpaccio and a chocolate
crepe (which was so good it was almost a religious experience!), I made my way to the Musée International du Parfum. Again a musem dedicated to perfume. There is an extensive collection of perfume bottles, some antique and some that I quickly recognized like Chanel No. 5, Eternity by Calvin Klein and so on and so on and so on. There was a terrace where some of the common ingredients of perfume were being grown. It was a very interactive museum. There were a number of stations that you would press and some scent would be wafting out of what almost looked like a microphone. There were video displays and even games for little kids to get into the action.
And that would end my perfume filled day in Grasse. I made it just in time at the train station to only hear that the train was being delayed. I mentioned the other day that the trains were always on time and I think that I jinxed it! This time the reason was ... suspicious package abandoned at the Mouanx-Sartou station (one of our stops). So we were delayed by a little over an hour ... it gave me
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Factory Fragonard time to plow through Angels and Demons (yes ... I am on book number 2 now!)
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Francine
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Fontaine parfumée...oh my! Think I would have loved to visit this place...you know how I love all those scents and perfumes! And that lunch you had looks pretty yummy. Wonder if you miss poutine?:)