After a week in Paris, 10 days in Switzerland, 24 days in Italy we traveled onto the south of France beginning with the Côte d’Azur…Villefranche Sur Mer for 4 nights giving me a chance to continue my french lessons. Just the mere sound of Villefranche Sur Mer sounds attractive and exotic. This little town of 5100 is a wonderful place to relax and convenient for exploring nearby towns. This charming and colorful town is situated on the hillside between the Mediterranean Sea and the Alps Maritimes. When we arrived at our AirBnB the air conditioner was broke, the toilet seat was broke and the floor was extremely dirty. I had contacted the owner two weeks prior to see if the things had been repaired that from previous customers’ complaints. I was told that everything was repaired…wrong! Corporate AirBnB took care of everything and we moved into a MUCH, MUCH better apartment with magnificent views! OMG, I fell in love with this apartment, the view, the location, the language and so much more. Yes, we had to schlep our stuff up to the 4th floor but the steps were so worth it, affording us views in three directions.
The train station was a 5 minute walk and it stopped very frequently so our trips to Menton, Monaco, Èze, and Nice were a breeze. While in Europe we focused mainly on the “old towns.” Menton’s vieux ville felt more like Italy than France with its ochre buildings, narrow, winding streets and stairs and the Baroque Saint-Michel Basilica. The Vieux Château Cemetary, first built in 1808, held beautiful crypts and graves and offered beautiful views of the sea all the way to the Italian Riviera.
Monaco, the second smallest sovereign state after Vatican City, was dripping in dollars…even the train station was super fancy. The Casino de Monte Carlo was obviously the place for the rich and famous. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the interior but the opulence and luxury were astounding. Despite receiving incorrect information from google and wrong directions from locals we climbed the hill and barely made it to the changing of the guard at the Palais du Prince. In terms of grandiose palaces this one was unimpressive. This is the official residence of Prince Albert II and was built in the 13th century. No trip to the coast is complete without visiting a marina, and such a glamorous marina it is with an abundance of super mega-yachts!
We visited the beach in Èze which was typical of the beaches in this area: very pebbly, unlike the white sands of Florida and the Bahamas that we typically see. The beach/bay in Villefranche Sur Mer is known to be one of the prettiest. There is definitely something to say about having the water and the mountains at the same time.
Nice is an awesome city…large enough to house music and fine arts with a small town feel and a beautiful beach. Nice is also know for it’s walkability. We planned to walk to the Matisse museum and just happened to walk past the Marc Chagall museum which was a real jewel. Chagall was one of the few artists that was still alive to help create his own museum in a place where he had lived for a large portion of his later life. He chose to place the building in a peaceful setting that was designed to showcase his own works. This could be seen in the stained glass windows that he created, the garden like setting, and tiled walls. I love his bold use of color, especially his azure, but my favorite room was a huge treat for the senses in pinks. Only a few people can enter the room at a time and one person is seated in front of each of the five large paintings, Song of Songs. In the arm of the chairs are papers to dip into scents (similar to a perfume counter) created to evoke the images in the paintings. Such a thrill to sit and contemplate the feelings that the artist shared. Sadly, my description does not do the scene justice. It was one of my favorite art experiences.
On to the Heneri Matisse museum which was a little disappointing after the Chagall museum. It seemed disjointed, lacked educational captions and audioguides and had few works. However, it was located in a lovely park where we saw locals playing petanque, similar to bocce, which was interesting to watch. This wonderful day was topped off with a 2 hour segway ride along the promenade, through the old town, up to the castle hill and to the #ILOVE NICE sign. Segways are my favorite ways to get a feeling for a city and Nice is certainly a wonderful place to explore. You may be reading between the lines and seeing that I absolutely loved this area and would love spend an extended time in the Villefranche Sur Mer/Nice area!
From Nice we rented a car for the remaining 9 days in the south of France. Ménerbes, a town made famous by the book, “A Year in Provence,” by Peter Mayle . I enjoyed reading this book and definitely wanted to include it in our itinerary. Considered to be one of “The Most Beautiful Villages” of France, Ménerbes was one of the many walled villages in which we stayed in Europe. Located on a hilltop in the Lubéron mountains, part of the foothills of the French Alps. It is known for it’s unusual shape like a ship in a sea of vineyards. Our particular home was originally owned by the neighboring church. Our host, Francois was wonderful with a treasure trove of stories as his family had lived in Ménerbes and owned this property for generations. This medieval village with a population of about 1000 held mostly “second homes” so we saw very few locals.
Ménerbes was our home base for touring Provence. During our 4 night stay we made day trips to the nearby villages of picturesque Gordes and the very red Roussilon, famous for it’s red cliffs and ochre quarries which were used in the making of the buildings. We also visited Lacoste, of Pierre Cardin fame, which is now home to the Savannah College of Art and Design known as SCAD. We were thoroughly impressed with the market at L’isle-sur-la-sorgue which took up almost the entire town. Unfortunately, we missed the flowering season of lavender but enjoyed learning about the process of making real, high quality lavender essential oils at the Lavender Museum.
From using so many public restrooms we had some interesting experiences. On the upper left you see an example of Roman latrines, on the lower left you see a door for the public restroom and a urinal for the men that just can’t wait their turn…no doors, just out in the open. On the right was the smallest bathroom…so small you can pee and wash your hands at the same time!
We stopped in the old walled portion of Avignon to tour the Palais de Papes. This medieval Gothic fortress and palace was home to the papacy of six popes during the 14th century. The popes were relocated from the Vatican when they sought the protection of the French monarchy from dangers in Rome.
Scott’s second favorite experience of our trip was the Pont du Gard (the name of the bridge portion of the aqueduct) in Uzès. Those Romans loved their water…the fountains, the baths, and aqueducts. Built in the 1st century this aqueduct that carried water to the city of Nîmes is one of Roman’s finest accomplishments with rare architecture (3 rows of superimposed arches). This three level bridge, almost 50 m high, is a technical and artistic masterpiece…it rivals the collosseum as an incredible structure built 2000 years ago and carried water for 500 years. The aqueduct had an incline of only 12 meters for a distance of 186 miles; that is 2.3″ per mile which is absolutely phenomenal engineering and surveying.
We chose a 15th century AirBnB in the town of Uzès not knowing that the water that flowed through the Pont du Gard originated in the Eure in Uzès, just a short walk from our apartment. With some effort we found a portion of the ground level duct overgrown with weeds and portions of the collapsing tunnel. Scott gets really excited about rocks and stones…like Stonehenge, the ruins in Rome, the Pont du Gard and the origin of the aqueduct in Uzès.
A bonus site at Pont du Gard was the 2000 year old olive tree from Spain that was dated from 908! In our drives on the backroads from Nice to Ménerbes to Uzès and ending in Carcasonne we became enamored with the London Planetrees that line the roads and pathways.
Finally, we spent 3 nights inside the double-walled medieval hilltop town of Carcassonne in the Languedoc region. The movie Robin Hood was filmed in this well preserved UNESCO site which was fairly crowded and touristy. Carcassonne is famous for its cassoulet, a hearty stew made with white beans, duck and sausage and of course we felt obliged to share a dish. We enjoyed walking the ramparts both here and in Aigues-Mortes which we visited en route to Carcassonne. Aigues-Mortes, yet another walled city, means “dead water”, and is surrounded by marshes and ponds (somewhat visible in the photo below. It is known for its salt flats. Located in the Camargue region of Occitania, the region is noted for its wild white horses, pink flamingoes and black bulls…darn, we missed the flamingoes!
We dropped off our car at the train station of Carcassonne and zoomed off to Spain for 18 days. Hopefully the next blog is coming soon! I need to finish before we head off for our next adventure!
Scott and Melissa's "Unforgettable" Adventures 
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