Last day in Nice. 29th May

Bottling perfume in Grasse

Gourdon

Gourdon

Tourettes sur Loup

Tourette sur Loup

waterfall between villages

St Paul de Vence

Where we saw David and Fiona

just outside St Paul de Vence

The theatre in Cannes sans red carpet today

Shop in Antibe

Lovely Art Deco building in Antibe (for Pearl)

First nun spotted ANYwhere this trip. In Antibe

Posh yachts in Antibe

Amazing Marriot hotel facade in Nice

Local Friday night talent in Nice. See the blue chairs- trademark of the Cote d'Azur

A day in Provence.
Frank, our tour guide and chauffeur picked us up from the hotel bright and early this morning in a mini van for our full day excursion around the towns and villages of Provence.

There were six others on board initially but after lunch they were returned to Nice and Frank collected two new people for the afternoon section.  It appears we were the only ones doing the full day version.

We had quite a full day with a visit to Grasse and the Fragonard perfume factory there; Gourdon, one of France's most beautiful villages; Tourettes sur Loup where violets are harvested and the views over the mountains are stunning; and St Paul de Vence, which is a walled village and now an artist colony.
After lunch we visited the resort towns of the rich and famous:  Cannes and Antibes and were then returned to the hotel.

Although it was interesting to see how perfume is made in Grasse, to see the famous beaches and the theatre where the Cannes Film Festival is held each year, and to see the luxury yachts at the marina in Antibe, it was the medieval villages in the hills that were the standout attraction for me.  I loved their quaint architecture and each's love affair with flowers.  I confess I went a little snap happy in the three mountain villages when every turn in the narrow laneways revealed something breathtakingly beautiful, naturally framed for a photograph or simply artfully positioned.

While Frank was rearranging passengers, we were able to enjoy two hours in St Paul de Vence.  That allowed us plenty of time to stroll around and find some lunch.  We ate in a tiny restaurant with oodles of character, then wandered around until we found a place selling gelati.  While we were enjoying that in the shade of the village church tower, one of Vaughan's old CBA workmates, David Hickman and his wife Fiona, walked by. He and Vaughan were equally astonished at seeing one another, even though Vaughan had known David was somewhere in Europe at the moment.  Photos were duly taken, stories exchanged and bon voyages shared.

Back at the hotel we decided to avoid a high priced restaurant as a cost saving measure, caught a bus part way into the city and slummed it with a MacDonalds meal.  That would have been fine but the last bus on the route back to the hotel failed to showed up despite the fact that people were still hitting the nightspots and restaurants in droves.  We finally gave up at around 9:30 and agreed to share a cab with a young woman equally stranded and heading in the same direction.   Our next trick was to find a free cab, and that proved challenging in itself.  Once the cab was secured, it was a simple four km drive down the road, but  even with sharing the fare, we ended up spending more on our transport than we did on the entire meal!

As I write this, we're finishing off the bottle of  a very delicious Vinsanto dessert wine that I bought in Santorini with some thought of taking home with us. Restrictions on carrying liquids onboard aircraft meant that it would have had to be packed in our suitcases - and basically, I chickened out.  Although I would have loved to drink it at home, it has met its end here in Nice and it sweetened an otherwise sour note on our last day,

We will check out of the hotel at midday Saturday ( tomorrow ) local time and that will be the beginning of our return home.  We don't reach Tullamarine until the wee hours of Monday morning and won't actually cross Bass Strait until Monday afternoon -also local time.  Fingers crossed we don't run into any problems.

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