Its gorgeous beaches and warm weather make the perfect combination for an atmosphere of relaxation. This wonderful travel video will give you a sense of what it’s like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0Pa8aIqmNI.

Moreover, for those who like to stay active while enjoying the sun, Promenade des Anglais is ideal. This beautiful seaside promenade runs along cafes located directly on the beach and is constantly booming with runners, walkers, cyclists and rollerbladers.

One of the city’s most delightful attractions is the famous Cours Saleya Flower Market. The stands are completely packed with colorful produce and lovely cafes and souvenir shops surround it.

Many other attractions to visit include museums, theaters and palaces. Such attractions in addition to the nightlife and seaside dining make Nice a superb vacation destination.

Algumas fotografias que tirei em Cap d’Antibes.

Mais uma manhã passeando e fotografando Saint Paul de Vence.

Vi nåede heldigvis vores tog videre til Narbonne. Her skiftede vi til et tog til Marseille. Vi havde 2 timer i Marseille, men vi blev på stationen pga. regnvejret. Vi er efterhånden sikker på det forfølger os.
Toget fra Marseille til Nice tog ca. 3 timer, klokken var 22 da vi kom til hotellet. Lang togtur, men meget at se.

(Bjerge ved Narbonne.)
Henrik havde spist i Marseille, så jeg hentede noget Mcdonald’s og tog med tilbage til hotellet. Der var meget larm på gaden, så det var svært at sove.

Dagen efter tog vi toget til Monte Carlo i Monaco. Vejret var super godt, næsten skyfrit og varmt. På den korte togtur på 20 min kørte vi langs den franske riviera, Côte D’Azur. Vi kom forbi byer som Ezé og Villefranche, super flotte strande, og der var mange både på vandet i det gode vejr.

(Villefranche set fra togvinduet, skønt vejr.)
Vi startede med at gå til Monte Carlo Casino da vi stod af toget. Det var som i filmene, store biler i milionsklassen parkeret rundt om casinoet. Det var dog ikke åbent da vi kom forbi.

(Henrik og jeg foran Monte Carlo’s verdenskendte casino.
Vi gik videre til det kendte hårnålesving ved Fairmont hotellet, som er kendt fra Formel 1 løbet som køres årligt i de smalle gader.

(Henrik foran hårnåle svinget ved Fairmont hotellet.)
Derefter gik fulgte vi F1 banen, hvor vi kom gennem en tunnel der går under noget af byen. Der var biludstilling i byen den dag vi var der, og vi var så heldige at se kortegen af gamle flotte biler, der kørte gennem byen.

Vi kom ned til havnen, hvor vi så på de kæmpe yachts. Vi købte en vaffelis i en kiosk ved havnekanten. Det var efterhånden blevet så varmt at vi måtte smide overtøjet og gå rundt i skjorter.

Vi gik op ad bakken som skiller Monte Carlo og Fontvieille ad, på toppen ligger prinsen af Monaco’s slot. Udsigten var fantastisk over både Fontvieille og Monte Carlo, det var dog gået hen at blive ret overskyet.

(Henrik’s panorama billede af Monte Carlo set fra slotspladsen ved Prinsens slot.)
Vi gik en tur igennem Monte Carlo igen, og så tog vi toget hjem. Aftensmad spiste vi på en burgerkæde i Nice. Det var blevet skyfrit igen da vi havde spist, så vi gik en tur gennem Nice ned til stranden. Det begyndte dog at regne lidt, så vi gik hjem.

Det var super fedt at besøge Monaco, klart et sted jeg vil hen igen, der er utroligt flot og rent. Den franske riviera er også utrolig smuk, dog skal man nok ned forbi Cannes hvis man ikke gider de stenstrande som er i Nice og Villafranche.

Back in January I mentioned that I’d just returned from a 10-day trip to the Côte d’Azur as a guest of the local tourist board, who were keen to highlight the region’s film connections to potential visitors.

Since then I’ve been putting together a new blog, www.filmtravellercotedazur.com, which will see me cover the trip via blog posts, photos and video content over the next few months.

Filming near the village of Eze

The blog launched in Paris a fortnight ago (I sadly couldn’t make it to the event), with the following, slightly tongue-in-cheek, trailer announcing our plans:

There are plenty more towns and villages still to come on the blog and it’s been fascinating researching the numerous film connections since my return home.

Along with my 2012 tour of locations used in the Disney-Pixar film, Brave, it’s been a good time for set jetting.

We had a three day weekend for Easter. We went to Monte Carlo.

Okay, that’s not quite right. We went to Nice for the three-day weekend and one day we went to Monte Carlo. Let’s be clear: we can’t afford to stay in Monte Carlo. Nor, really, even eat dinner there.

I contemplated not even writing about this trip. I don’t know what to say about it – I went with my classmates and we had a good time.

But the juxtapositioning to my previous trip bears noting. I almost considered not going to Nice; I didn’t know much about it, but traveling to see a city just because it’s a city that people go see isn’t really my style. I didn’t come to France with a list of things to see, cities to visit, checklists of things you’re supposed to do when you’re in France. I had some ideas, but Nice wasn’t one of them (and Monte Carlo certainly wasn’t).

It would be so nice to travel with company though, with my classmates who I love. What was I going to do otherwise? Stay in Montpellier, the city that makes me un peu malheureuse? Duh. I was going. (This was confirmed as a good decision when, two days before we left, my friends were talking to our buddy Reto, a Swiss guy who had also done an exchange semester in Sweden, and he looked up tickets and decided on the spot to fly to Nice and meet us for the weekend. If I had missed that, it would have been terrible and embarrassing.)

When we arrived we wandered the city streets and eventually found a Lebanese restaurant that served up a mean Moussaka. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, to the beach and boardwalk, up to a park overlooking the city. We soaked in the sights and it was great. So fun to be done with classes – we had finished the day before, and this was a celebration. We soaked in the atmosphere of no responsibility.

The next day, Monte Carlo. As we walked out of the station, the sun on the Côte d’Azur was so bright we could hardly see the paradise around us.

We wandered down the streets of this immaculately planned and landscaped city, seeking the water. There’s not much space; tall luxury apartment buildings swooped skyward, roads slithered underneath. Monte Carlo is built onto  steep slope that tumbles down to the sea; sometimes you don’t realize how tall the buildings are because you don’t know that you’re not staring at the window on the ground floor.

It was almost silent; when you have your own personal chef and house staff, why would you leave your condo at nine in the morning? You’d sit on your balcony or open the windows of your bedroom and admire the weather, the blue that seems to reflect off of everything. Or you could go up to your rooftop garden, lush and green from all the photosynthesis of the Mediterannean spring. And soak in the quiet, the calm of cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars not yet plying the streets.

I don’t know who cleans Monte Carlo, or when, but by morning, it is immaculate. In so many ways a very unnatural place; as biologists we should have been appalled. But it didn’t feel sterile. It was nice to see a street with no trash, to not have to worry about stepping in all of the dogshit you find in France itself. There were flower beds everywhere, of course blooming. It smelled like flowers. This must be science fiction.

We found a playground. This was an affordable way to enjoy the city.

As we walked down the last street towards the port, I saw bikes flash past. My first thought was, man, if I was rich enough to live here I would buy the fanciest frickin’ road bike you’ve ever seen, and I would be so fit and and have a great time. Then my second thought was, wait a minute, that was a lot of bikes going really fast. I think there’s a bike race!

There was!

This was paradise, I thought.

This surprising development was enough to convince even my classmates to stand in the sun and watch for a little while as the jerseyed riders streaked past luxury yachts. I explained how a criterium worked. It turned out to be a disappointingly lame crit: just a one-kilometer loop with two turns. But they were steep enough to bunch the field up nicely. Still, even just a few laps in, there were groups separated by almost half the length of the course.

You can only watch bicycles race around in loops for so long, so we began to wander down the port itself, looking at all the fancy boats. We laughed at their names, imagined what the owners had done to get all their money, and joked about what we would do if we were lucky enough to own one of those boats. I tried not to imagine how much it must cost to have a slip in the port of Monte Carlo.

After a rainy previous day in Nice, it was enough for us just to take in the sun. I hoped I wasn’t getting sunburned.

We spent the rest of our time walking around, buying an overpriced and honestly not that good lunch (should have just sucked it up and payed a truly exorbitant amount for something good – if you’re buying lunch for a reasonable price here, they know you’re not their core customers…), and walking around some more. It was lovely.

As was the rest of the trip when we returned to Nice. I try to have a structure in my life: wake up in the morning, run, go to work, come home, answer e-mails or work for FasterSkier, make dinner, keep working, read something before bed. There’s little downtime, it’s always on to the next task. Now that I’m training for a marathon there’s an extra layer of control, even for me: you have to run at least this far, you have to not eat too much, you have to remember to sleep. To get away from that all for a weekend was liberating in a different way than going on a ski trip. There’s two kinds of vacations and both are very necessary! I felt guilty when I came home; over three days I had only run once. Unacceptable. But the standards I set for myself can be high. This weekend I was a normal person. And I know I will go back to being me, so it was fine.

It was more than fine. It was great. It was the Côte d’Azur, and I’m definitely coming back for another vacation later in life. The blueness of the sea, the tropical trees, everything. Delightful.

Now imagine racing around this corner in an F1 car:

um doce dia em Nice.

The point is, while I did spend a good deal of time lying in the fetal position, weeping and watching “Real Housewives” reruns (thus exacerbating my self-loathing, but at least not to Kardashian levels) I did manage to unfurl myself on occassion, and go some places and try new things.   I just didn’t have the energy to write much about them.   The fog of woe dimmed both my experiences and consequently, my memories of them.

Now that I’m starting to feel better, I’ve gone back over my photos, my research and the scant notes I scribbled at the time to reconstruct the experiences in order to provide the following brief travelogue.

AIGUES-MORTES

Facts:   An ancient fortified village on the coastal salt marches in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France.  The foundation of Aigues-Mortes was said be built in 102BC, but the first known mention of the place was in the 10th century AD.   Was a safe haven to protestants in the 1600′s.   Today it’s a charming walled village with boutique hotels, shops and many cafes and restaurants.

My notes:   This place would be really romantic if I was with somebody who loved me.   Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

PONT DU GARD

Facts:  A Roman Aqueduct in the Languedoc Roussillon region.   Built approximately 2000 years ago to transport water to the Roman city of Nimes from a lake about 25 kilometers north.  The UNESCO World Heritage Foundation calls it a feat of engineering and artistic genius.

My notes:  Okay..so this thing is thousands of years older than me and it looks sooooo much better than I do.

UZES

Facts:  Uzes was what they call an admistrative village back when the Pont du Gard was being built.  10 minutes from the Pont du Gard, it’s charming with tiny medieval streets and a beautiful square.   As an added attraction, the Haribo factory and museum is nearby.

My notes:   See that homeless person by the bakery?   That’ll be me in a couple of years.

VIENNA

Vienna is a beautiful city in Austria, filled with amazing art, architecture, history, palaces and pastry.   I went for the Christmas markets.   Nobody does Christmas markets better than people with harsh Germanic accents.

My notes:   This wurst is probably the closest thing to sex I’ll have for the rest of my life.

CAMARGUE

Facts:  The Camargue is basically a huge wetlands in the South of France between Marseille and Montpelier.   It’s preserved, untamed and a little like the wild, wild west.    Due to the location, climate and salt deposits,  It’s home to a lot of rare species like white horses, a certain breed of black bull (Taurau, which is also a dining staple) and flamant rose (pink flamingos).

My notes:    Even the flamingos hate me.

ARLES

Facts:   Technically Arles is a part of Provence, but it’s also considered the capital of the Camargue.   It served as a Roman Center and port for centuries, but is perhaps best known as the city where Van Gogh lived from 1888 – 1889.   In Arles he created over 300 works of art.   This is also where he cut off his ear and sent it to the prostitute he was in love with (as some legends have it).

My notes:  Nobody will ever love me enough to cut off their ear for me.

AVIGNON

Facts:   Built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Rhone, Avignon is a walled city in the Vaucluse department of Provence.   Its main claim to fame is its history as the home of the papacy during the short time in the 1300′s when they weren’t in Rome (the Palais des Papes).   Avignon is combination of medieval spendor, Provencal charm and all the modern ammenities a spoiled American could want.

My notes:   I’m pretty sure that bridge is a metaphor for my life.

LES BAUX AND ST REMY

Facts:  Two charming villages in Les Alpilles, a small but dramatic Provencal mountain range.  Les Baux is perched atop a rocky spur and signs of habitation from 6,000BC have been unearthed here!   St. Remy lies on the flatlands just north of the Alpilles and was both Van Gogh’s home when he was institutionalized in 1889, as well as the birthplace of Nostradamus.

My notes:   GODDAMNSONOFABITCH I FORGOT TO BRING MY RECHARGER!.   FUCK ME!

VENICE

Facts:  Arguably one of the most romantic cities in the world.   A gulag of 118 islands separated by canals and connected by bridges and boats.   It’s like stepping back into the middle ages with remarkable architecture palaces many with a hint of eastern influence.   Venice was once a major trading port, but now it’s mostly a tourist trap.   A beautiful, picturesque tourist trap.

My notes:   I’ll probably catch some hideous pigeon related disease, die a slow wasting death and nobody will care.

GOURDON

Facts:  A tiny inland feudal village perched above the cliffs overlooking the Cote d’Azur.   Named one of the most beautiful villages in France.

My notes: If I were to drive off the edge of a cliff on my way back and die a fiery death mangled in that ravine, nobody would give a shit.  Except the car rental company.

VALBONNE

Facts:   A village just a few kilometers inland from Antibes.   I guess you could say it’s an ancient suburb of France’s Silicon Valley, Sophia Antiopolis, which despite its antique moniker, is a tech center in France

My notes:   I’m archaic and uselss in the modern world.   I’m going to die alone and forgotten.

TOURETTES SUR LOUP

Facts:   Another ancient hilltop village a few kilometers North of the Cote d’Azur.   Home to lots of small artisan shops and is often preferred to nearby, more heavily touristed St. Paul de Vence.

My notes:   Another place I can scratch off my bucket list.   I guess that means I took a significant step towards death today.

AN OSTEOPATH

Facts:  An osteopath is a medical professional that deals with issues of alignment, musculature and joints.   Sadly, as I learned when I got there, osteopaths do not prescribe.

My notes:   These needles in my back are probably the closest thing I’ll have to sex for the rest of my life.

That’s about it.    Looking back, I’ve gotta say, this has been one of the best winter depressions I’ve ever had!

un peu de chaleur par ces temps maussades! - A little of heat by this weather gloomy!

If I were a painter
My palette would hold Ultramarine
Viridian hue yellow ochre
And a touch of sienna

But I am just a dreamer
Standing in her foaming festoons
Caught in the ebb and flow
In a liminal space where all
Is measured yet undefined

I dream of feeling warm and whole
The sun kissing my shoulders
The Med’s music lulling the ache
The wind breathing its peace into my soul
And a ghost holding my hand

But dispite this gloriously sunny day, weather predictions say that it will be raining again for the next week or so.

No swimming this month, I guess.

Bye for now…

http://thenovelladyfingers.wordpress.com

http://gingersnapsanovel.wordpress.com/

The artist came to live in Antibes, acquiring a place for him and his wife in the neighbouring town of Biot.  He and his wife, people say with envy, were married for more than 50 years and her name, appropriately, was Damour.  And there is greater affection for his memory than for that of Picasso. A small museum to honour him was set up on the Place de la Republique.  Hand in hand, Claudie and I did our pilgrimage to it.

Les Amoureax

Most people associate Peynet with the commercialising of his work.  It is often seen as sentimental, saccharine, cute, but it’s more subtle than that.  Les Amoureux (The Lovers) are the chief focus and the variations on this theme since the 1930s are bewildering – he’s even done a series on the astrology icons with the lovers!

Les Remparts drawn by Peynet

In the museum they had an exhibition too, with the work of other caricaturists – Ronald Searle; Honoré Daumier and others.  One painted caricature that really impressed me was of different types of cheese in the uncanny form of Charles de Gaulle’s profile.  The idea, of course, comes from Acrimboldo.  This caricature probably refers to De Gaulle’s statement as the president that it is difficult to govern a nation that has more than 246 cheeses!

Humour conquers all, a wall legend in the museum by Paul Klee tells us.  What strikes me with Peynet is that all he does is inhabited by a smile.  With the pain, anguish and tragedy of life, there is someone who will relentlessly seek out human warmth.

Raymond Peynet

On the way back, strolling through the Saturday crowds, I saw what I had previously missed when I went that way out of the vieille ville – the monument to the martyrs of the French Resistance, an image that touches, but it couldn’t quite banish Peynet’s doves that alight on the little man’s black hat as he cradles his beloved.

What remains with me too, is the plaque in the museum informing us that, in 1995, with the 50^th annual memorial service of Hiroshima, the Japanese unveiled a bronze depicting The Lovers at the site of one of humanity’s greatest desolations.

© Will v.d.Walt

Samedi  14 Janvier 2012

www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Image Sources: by Will and  www.peynet.com

If the smell of strawberry ice cream turns you on, then you’ll easily be allured to the aroma of a gelateria in Portofino, San Remo or Menton. These are the towns of the Franco-Italian Riviera and they bask in sun for two-thirds of the year.

If that sounds good to you, then the Riviera is the place for you. Whether it is the sunny ice creams, pizzerias and cappuccino’s in Italy, or Arabic cafes, bakeries and beaches on the French side, this place is truly enchanting.

It is full of all the glories of life in this part of the world. I remember about eleven years ago now, when my dad flew into Nice to see us. However, this was only because this was the nearest point to us that he could fly to. One problem.

We lived in Brittany…northwest…and not southeast…France. Why were we living there? A story for another time.

So we piled into our Volvo Estate and set off for the long journey across France. It was one to remember too. After we had left, we passed through France’s equivalent of the Canadian prairies. It is the breadbasket of the country, with wheat being the chief product and fertile soil lying in the land.

The Pays De La Loire and Poitou-Charente regions stretch from St Nazaire in the north to Bordeaux in the south and from the Bay of Biscay in the west to Clermont-Ferrand in the east.

An overnight stop was spent in Clermont in an Etap hotel for a good rate, about forty Euros, as I recall. It was a clean and well-dressed city. We left the next morning and spent most of the day driving south to Narbonne, a fun little town in Provence. Green trees line the avenue of this sweet, beautiful town.

We had to travel this far south to reach the main road, the E15 to Montpellier and then the E80 Salon-de-Provence, outside Marseille. Then on to Aix-en-Provence where you’ll pass through Parc Jourdan and straight on to our destination.

Now, about Nice. After a night in a seaside hotel, we entered the city in order to pick up my dad from the airport. The city didn’t make a good impression with me. Aside from that, though, we had a decent stay, punctuated by the beaches, or, namely, the topless women on them.

I was fourteen years old and, for me, it was paradise. As we crossed the border into Italy, I felt a distinct sense of adventure. My first impression of San Remo on the Italian side was one of surrealism. It was January and the christmas lights were  still up.

This did not gel at all with the  temperate beaches and sunshine that the city glowed in. I passed through Monaco twice to get there by train. The view of the water was dazzling! It only cost 5 Euros and the station was clean. Not so in San Remo.

The longest tunnel-walk in the world between the train and the station front door is here. It takes a few minutes. Happy days were spent there, as my dad purchased a flat in Ceriana, a tiny hill village just a few miles north of San Remo.

Ceriana (IM), 2010. (Photo credit: Fiore S. Barbato)

It was a sweet place, as is shown below, but the flat was uninhabited and unprepared. My dad had rather unrealistic ideas about renting it out to tourists.

We met up with a real estate agent in the village, called Martina, who ran a real estate business with her husband, Klaus. We spent a day overlooking the flat and discussing terms. It wasn’t very interesting for me and I didn’t like the property. I think my dad was the only one who did.

But that was the first time I went down. Over the next few years, I grew fond of the flat, having stayed in it twice in 2005 for a week’s stretch and a two-week stretch. The first time I went down, my dad picked me up from the airport.

We crossed into France again one day as we headed for the seaside town of Menton. I’ll remember that day forever. There was a festival of oranges on and it was bright screaming sunshine. And as for the bakeries, there were fruit-flavoured pastries abound!

Menton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We tried some oranges and they are probably the best I’ve ever had. I really appreciated my dad doing that for me. He was so impressed with the town. It was a really special week.

The bus trip…anyone who has been on the road between Ceriana on the bus  is either extremely brave, foolish or insane. A the bus veers close to the steep drop-off on one side, my heart leaps. My faith in the drivers is not well-founded either.

They gab on their cell-phones, talk to the passengers and throw their hands up in the air, completely oblivious to the concept that they might have to keep those things that have fingers on them gripped to the big wheel that steers the thing called a bus with loads of innocent people, whose life flashes before their eyes, in it.

Mine did. I was quite peaceful about that. Scared stiff about dying though.

If you get there, though, this is what awaits. A calm, cosy square with cafes all around and a pleasant, gentle atmosphere to suit. I felt as though life could not be more contented. The marina was just adjacent to the square, leisure boats and the like.

Well I sure hope Mario enjoyed the English tea that I got for him and the strawberry jam, among with other items. It was only on later trips that I found out about all the eateries in the vicinity. The communities are tiny, but they have traditionally cooked, very palatable food.

One may dine at the pizzeria in Ceriana itself, run by Esmerelda and Dario. It has the finest Margherita’s around. Then there are, of course, numerous counterparts such as the Restaurant Vecchia Fattoria. Don’t be mistaken. Of the dozen or so items on the menu, you don’t get to choose one.

They’ll serve you the entire menu, one item after another. There was also a cafe in Bajardo, further north about two miles. I don’t recall the name. Portofino and the cove around the harbour are not to be forgotten. The colour of its sweet little cottages embedded on the hillside is an image that will last for decades in my memory.

It’s gaudy-painted boats only add to this glamorous retreat. You can spend hours by the waterfront there and getting to it by car is a fun adventure of relaxing, winding roads and sunshine. Along with car honks. someone may be around the bend in front of you, so you’d better warn them of your presence!

There was Turin too, of course. I flew in there once to catch a train to San Remo. Two remarkable things happened to me. One, the first time I went there, the bus driver forgot to tell me when I was at the station. This resulted in me missing my train and having to connect via Savona.

It added about four hours to my journey. The second experience was when I went back. My dad and I took the train, kipping in the station. We got about two hours of sleep and decided to wander round at three a.m. Bizarrely, all the cafes were buzzing.

That morning, we checked into a decent hotel, shadowed a monastery above the city. We ate in a cosmopolitan restaurant and flew out the next day.

It was with sadness, therefore, that my father had to sell his flat, never having rented it to so much as dormouse. They were lovely days…

Related articles

• Ventimiglia on the Italian Riviera (ireport.cnn.com)
• Villa Menton on the French Riviera (thempreport.com.au)
• Just because they are awesome: MTN-Qhubeka (fiveuninterruptedminutes.wordpress.com)
• A Tale of Two “Rivieras” – Second Home Owners are Flocking to France and the USA (prweb.com)
• Ultra Fragrances’ Spring 2013 Beauty Must-Haves (prweb.com)
• Imperiale Palace- Snata Margherita (hpshotels.wordpress.com)
• San Remo Oasis (mycebuproperties.wordpress.com)
• Suitsupply’s reasonable alternative to Rubinacci (sartorialsymposium.wordpress.com)
• The Menton Fête du Citron (wickedandweirdaroundtheworld.com)
• Transformation in Cinque Terre (bespoketraveler.wordpress.com)

Read more at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/9939363/France-big-year-of-art-on-the-Riviera.html

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Looking at this I am automatically thinking Cote d’Azur…

just came up for sale…

Moi et ma femme, nous avons passé une semaine heureuse à Saint-Paul-de-Vence vers la fin d’octobre 2011. Saint-Paul-de-Vence est un village médiéval situé sur le sommet d’une colline, aux contreforts des Alpes maritimes environ une demi-heure par voiture au nord-ouest de Nice. Le village est spectaculaire et bien préservé, et maintenant il est presque entièrement consacré à l’exposition et la vente des beaux-arts. Pendant les mois d’été, il est plein de touristes, mais vers la fin d’octobre il était beaucoup plus calme. En fait, au temps de notre arriveé, le restaurant fameux de La Colombe d’Or, dont les murs intérieurs sont pleins de tableaux des grands peintres, était sur le point d’être fermé pour plusieurs mois parce que c’était la fin de la saison. Nous avions voulu retourner à Saint-Paul-de-Vence depuis que, quelques ans plus tôt, nous étions restés au Château du Domaine Saint Martin, qui est situé à Vence, plus haut aux montagnes que Saint-Paul. En allant de Vence à l’aéroport de Nice, nous avions passé Saint-Paul et avions aperçu la vue extraordinaire du village qu’on peut voir depuis la Route de la Colle. J’avais voué qu’un jour je retournerais là et que je prendrais alors une photo de cette belle vue. Cette fois-ci nous avions décidé à rester à Le Hameau, un charmant hôtel situé sur la Route de la Colle aux environs de Saint-Paul.

Nous sommes arrivées à l’hôtel vers la fin de l’après-midi et, après que je nous y avais enregistrés, j’ai ramassé mon appareil photo et trépied et me suis dirigé à la Route de la Colle. Depuis cette route, on peut voir une vue imprenable du côté ouest de Saint-Paul en entier, y compris les murs fortifiés du village, qui étaient construits pendant le 16ème siècle sur commande de François Ier. Voice le village, illuminé par des rayons rougeâtres du soleil couchant (vous pouvez cliquer sur n’importe quelle image dans ce blog pour en voir une copie plus grande):

À mon retour à Le Hameau, j’ai erré pendant quelque temps au travers les jardins et passages de ce bel hôtel:

De Le Hameau, on ne mettait que 10 minutes pour marcher le long de la Route de la Colle à l’entrée du village de Saint-Paul. Donc je pouvait arriver au village tous les matins avant le lever du soleil pour prendre des photos de ses rues, ses bâtiments et ses cours, tous si beaux et bien préservés, dans la lumière du petit matin et sans piétons et voitures. Après qu’on entre dans le village par son extrémité nord, on passe le restaurant Le Colombe d’Or et puis on entre dans la Rue Grande, qui s’étend sur presque toute la longueur du village du nord au sud, en passant sous des arches anciennes. Les côtés de cette rue sont pleins d’ateliers et de galeries d’art:

Dans le centre du village, un peu loin de la Rue Grande, il se trouve la Place de la Grande Fontaine. Dans le 17ème siècle, cette place était le centre de l’activité sociale et commerciale du village et le site d’un marché hebdomadaire:

Un peu plus loin vers le sud, il y a une cour charmante qui s’appelle “La Placette” et qui contient une petite fontaine:

Un matin, comme je suis arrivé à l’extrémité sud de la Rue Grande, les rayons du soleil levant illuminaient les sommets des bâtiments:

Depuis les remparts du côté est du village, il y a une vue magnifique sur les Alpes maritimes au nord:

La population de Saint-Paul comprend moins que trois mille habitants. Avec ses nombreux ateliers, galeries d’art, boutiques, hôtels, églises et restaurants, on pourrait en conclure que le village n’aurait pas beaucoup d’espace pour des habitations. Mais il y a des exemples frappants d’architecture médiévale parmi les maisons qu’on voit là:

Vraiment, il y a de belles vues dans presque tous les coins de Saint-Paul:

Comme on peut voir, une visite à Saint-Paul-de-Vence est un impératif pour toute personne qui voyage à la Côte d’Azur.

On peut voir d’autres photos de Saint-Paul-de-Vence et photos d’autres villages en Provence et la Côte d’Azur à mon site de web photographique, dans la galerie Provence-Côte d’Azur. Pour plus d’informations sur ma photographie, vous pouvez visiter aussi ma page photographique de Facebook, à http://www.facebook.com/PhilHaberPhotography.

Phil Haber

It’s not cold particularly, it’s around 13/14 degrees celsius, but its very grey and wet.

According to the locals it’s the wettest year the Côte d’Azur has seen in about 25 years! I can’t wait until we get some good weather and the sun shines. It seems that most of our friends dotted around the world are having extreme weather conditions too. I hope it gets better soon so we can go out sailing. I must admit I much prefer it when it’s sunny and I have my paws crossed that the weather will get better soon.

So mum and I have been cleaning out the turtle tank. Michael-Angelo and Milo have grown so much, I can’t quite believe it!

And now it’s time for a little nap I think!

Bisous Bailey

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Relaxing sea side in Nice, Cote D’azur, France

With the miles of beaches, dozens of museums and endless restaurants to offer, going to the opera isn’t the first thing you might think of when imagining a visit to Nice.  It should be.

Located in Nice’s old city just steps from the sea front, the gorgeous opera house is a historical landmark.  It was designed by French architects Francois Aune in and Charles gold and Garnier and built in 1882.

The grand exterior pales in comparison to the sumptuous decorations inside.  The theater has the three beautiful tiers of of boxes each adorned with red velvet curtains, lamps and mirrors on the walls.

The banquet seats in the stalls are also covered with thick red velvet and the room is covered golden hued frescoes on the ceiling and walls with a giant crystal chandelier hanging above.

The performances range from opera in the winter, to ballet in the summer, with chamber music and symphonies all year.

Nosebleed seats start at just €12 (€5 with a student id) so even if you aren’t an aficionado, it’s worth the ticket price just to sit in the grand theater.

[4-6, Rue Saint Francois de Paule +33 (0) 4 9217 4000]