Patricia Sands

Author

Travel on the Cote D'Azur

On y va ~ follow along on our 2018 women’s tour!

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The fun in the south of France began in Nice today as sixteen ladies arrived from Canada, the United States and Australia. They will spend the next twelve exciting days with my good friend, Deborah Bine aka Barefoot Blogger, and me.

Day #1 ~ Dinner on the beach kicked things off tonight, with a delicious meal at the Plage Beau Rivage .

A perfect Côte d’Azur evening was the best reward after arduous hours of travel. The journey from Melbourne, Australia, to Nice was definitely the longest. So much fun getting to know everyone!

We hope you will follow along as we visit some of the beautiful historic and charming locations I write about in my novels and Deborah blogs about.  Thanks to the awesome Nancy McGee of Absolutely Southern France travel agency for putting all of our details into such an impressive package. 

Come join us as we make some memories for a lifetime!

Literature, Lunch and Lavender – part one

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If it’s Friday, it must be France …

Talk about a good story! The literary history along the south coast of France is tough to match.

Poets and scribes from the Roman Empire told of the beauty of Antipolis, now Antibes. In later centuries writers began visiting the Riviera for the beauty, the sea,  the solitude or the company of other writers, as far back as the Italian poet Dante Alighieri  in the 13th century. Petrarch, John Milton and Michel Nostradamus were just some of the earlier men of letters who created their timeless works along this coast.

Tobias Smollett penned what is considered the first “travel” book for this area in 1763. Nietsche found inspiration in the 1880’s for some of his work as he walked the ancient donkey and goat paths here (see my earlier post). In the 1920’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was among those writers who ushered the Jazz Age to the area. In the 1980’s, Graham Greene wrote J’Accuse, opening up investigations into organized crime and politics in the area. Most came for inspiration. Others came to seek the fabulous weather and local colour, to gamble, to escape taxes or social ostracism.

The trend continues as witnessed by the “Local Authors” table in Heidi’s English Bookshop  from my post last Friday. I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting one of the writers in that group, Patty Knight from Boston. She writes under the pen name of Adora Bennett for Genesis Press and comes to Antibes for inspiration whenever it’s possible. I’m looking forward to meeting many of the others. Whether a writer with an established name or a fresh voice on the scene, the search for inspiration here is never ending.

Named for one of Antibes’ most revered sons , the Prix Jacques Audiberti de la Ville d’Antibes, worth 50,000 francs to the laureate,  honours a writer with a special interest in the Mediterranean.

Ted Jones, a British freelance writer, who lives in the south of France has written The French Riviera: A Literary Guide for Travellers. It’s an informed and entertaining book covering writers from  Graham Greene and W. Somerset Maugham who lived here,  to those writers whose work this area dominates, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Guy de Maupassant, to those who simply lingered there. His comprehensive work covers them all, including: Louisa M. Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, J.G. Ballard, Simone de Beauvoir, Bertholt Brecht, Albert Camus, Casanova, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Vladimir Nabakov, T.S. Eliot, Andre Gide,  Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Victor Hugo, James Joyce,and countless others. Not only do you get the buzz on the authors and how they lived and were inspired here, it’s also an excellent travel guide to the area.

Albert Camus, who spent many years living in Le Cannett, once said: “Writers come here for the easy life but the beauty of the Côte inspires them to new literary heights!”

To experience the literary Riviera read what Ted Jones has to say and then go back to the books of these great authors.

We’ve rented a car for the day so better hit the road … so many places, so little time. I’ll save the Lunch and Lavender parts for next Friday.

What inspires you? Have you read many novels set on the Côte D’Azur? If you have a favourite, I would love to hear about it!

À bientôt!

Renoir, Rubens & Frites City

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There are few places in the south of France, large or small, that don’t offer a special reason to stop by. Treasures abound of every kind. I’m just saying …

Cagnes-Sur-Mer is ten-minutes west of Nice and easy to reach by the coastal train. Choose to spend time at one of many pebble beaches  or take the shuttle to Haut-de-Cagnes. Stroll the narrow streets of the medieval village where you will find great restaurants and the 13th Century Grimaldi Castle. Plan to visit the beautiful domaine “Les Collettes” , the Musée Renoir, where Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the founders of Impressionism, sculpted and painted for the last 11 years of his life. Visitors during that time included Albert André, Rodin, Bonnard, Matisse and Modigliani to name just some.  It was here that Renoir started sculpting with Richard Guino and later Louis Morel.The home and grounds have been authentically restored and visiting his studio, with his wheelchair, easel and brushes as he might have left them, is very touching. The view of Haute-De-Cagnes from the house and olive groves is simply beautiful and visiting artists are often seen throughout the property capturing their own masterpieces. You also suddenly come upon this view driving the A8 west of Nice and it’s quite stunning!

 

A return trip to Grasse  (click on the name to visit the website)was on the agenda last Wednesday only this time we took the bus from the  Grasse train station instead of the 200 steps up to the old town in Centre Ville. (Not to mention the inclines often found between the sets of steps!) I found the steps fun to do last time but my husband’s back did not agree! The more time we spend in this intriguing town, the more surprises we discover. Known as the perfume capital of the world since the 1500’s when the Italian glove makers in the area (this part of France was more connected politically to Italy for many centuries) began to add scents to the gloves, the perfume industry dominates the economy and supplies essences to manufacturers everywhere. At 300m above the Cote D’Azur, the open fields in the surrounding countryside offered the perfect environment for the profusion of fragrant flowers, many developed from seeds brought back from the Crusades. The excellent Museum of Provençal Art and History is housed in an Italianate Villa built  for Jean-Paul Clapier Marquis de Cabris who married Louise de Riqueti daughter of  the Marquis de Mirabeau.  When the couple were required to live with the Dowager Marquisese, Jean-Paul soon fell out with his mother. He proceeded to have his own house built in a way that entirely blocked  her previously magnificent view. If you visit, note the Gorgons Head depicting vomiting vipers  above the front door which reportedly was placed so it would be directly in the line of sight of the old lady. The French have a reputation for dealing with grudges in inventive and long lasting ways. There are several perfume museums in the town that are surprisingly interesting to visit as well.

The Cathedral Notre-Dame Du Puy,dates from the 11th Century and was extended in the 17th. Its bell tower dominates the skyline. The interior is stunning from the enormous, rough-hewn pillars to the three magnificent paintings by Rubens as well as the only religious painting known to be done by Jean Honoré Fragonard, born in Grasse in 1732.

Our week ended on a slightly different cultural note to the above trips. Through the last fifteen years, all of our trips to France have included more research into our quest for the perfect “frites”. Several years ago we spent some time in the beautiful Italian-influenced town of Menton right next to the border with Italy. Just off the main pedestrian way, at the foot of the old town, we discovered the best frites we have ever experienced in the, excusez-moi, unlikely-named “Frites City”. Seriously, we returned several times during our stay there. We hopped on the train and spent last Saturday afternoon in Menton and our first stop was to see if the establishment still existed. It does. The frites continue to be spectacular (the secret is the oil, the owner insists, not to mention the fact that the potatoes are freshly cut right then and there) and we had them for lunch … with a side of French mayonnaise. Magnifique, if not exactly the wisest food choice but we all need to break out every now and then!  Before or after your frites indulgence, visit the very personal Jean Cocteau Gallery  in the 12thC Bastion at the old port. A new museum to house more of his works and those of others from the collection of Severin Wunderman is under construction just across from this which promises to be quite spectacular.

As I share my travels with you, I would love to hear about yours. Where are your favourite places to visit? Some, I know, are in your own back yard. You can leave a comment below or on Facebook and I look forward to hearing from you!