Grasse

Thomas and Genevieve, who you met in an earlier post, invited us up to their place in Grasse for dinner on Tuesday evening.

The suggestion was also made that, as Grasse is an interesting little French hill town, we should come in the afternoon for a look around before dinner. Then, given Thomas and David share a love of single malts, and that they wanted us to try various items from their cellar, that we should perhaps consider staying the night.

A wonderful idea!
Grasse is up in the hills and only 10 miles from Cannes. You can see the sea from there but the town itself has quite a different feel from the coastal towns we have seen.

In the 1500’s the town was most famous for leather gloves but when perfumed gloves became the big thing in the 1600’s they began cultivating flowers and distilling essences. That marked the beginning of the perfume industry and is what Grasse is most famous for today, making more than ¾ of the world’s perfume.

Yep – all the sophisticated Parisian perfumes you see are Grasse essences blended into secret formulas by a ‘nose’.


I had a new appreciation of why perfume is the price it is when I got to grips with the maths of the thing. Take Jasmine as an example -

It takes 10,000 flowers to produce 1kg petals and 1 tonne petals to produce 1500mls essence.
So a 50ml bottle uses 333,333 flowers!


Unfortunately his nibs started sneezing and carrying on about 100 metres from the perfume factory - so not much in the way of photos, except this fountain outside which I was quite taken with.

A fanciful place Grasse; lots of quirky items on walls and doors.

By 6 pm we were headed up to Thomas’s place. It is only a 10 minute walk from the centre of town, but so tranquil.

They have a terraced garden full of olive, orange and apple trees and keep sand turtles (a rare protected kind that can’t swim). They bottle and pickle tons of wonderful things from jams to olives and make wines and liqueurs from others.

Usually when people want me to try fruit wine I have to dig hard for polite things to say. However we kicked off the evening with a delicious homemade orange wine served over ice and accompanied by socca (sp?) a Moroccan pancake kind of thing made with chickpea flour, torn up and eaten with marinated homegrown olives and tapenade. The wine and food were totally scrumptious and of course sitting out on the terrace looking at the sunset over Grasse was pretty good too.


The boys soon left the orange wine for the girls however. David opened the Balvenie DoubleWood whisky he had discovered in Scotland and Thomas brought out his ceremonial whisky tasting cup.

It all looked rather civilised and remained that way through a lovely dinner accompanied by some cellared wines and dessert accompanied by 100 year old armagnac made by Genevieve’s great grandfather.

Probably that is where we should have stopped but were persuaded to try home made prune liqueur. I took a sip and gave the rest to David who quaffed it and was soon advised to have a wee lie down in the hammock.

He made a valiant effort to keep making sense but things were looking pretty relaxed by the end of the evening.

17 September

With no family or friends around, David decided he would like to celebrate his birthday by going into Cannes for lunch and a looksee.

We had a SPLENDID time wandering around looking at the festival centre, boats, foreshore, shops etc, and it was it was getting on for 3pm by the time we stopped for lunch.

David has taken somewhat of a shine to moules et frites since we have been en Provence. As you can see is a big plate of mussels with a side of fries. And of course it needs the accompaniment of plenty of wine and, being a celebration, a dessert of profiteroles in chocolate sauce to follow.

By the time we got through all that, had a bit more of a wander /waddle, and got home again we wanted only a simple dinner of mango, nectarines and grapes and a little wine and goat cheese.

Mandelieu

On Friday we left our hotel in Antibes and moved a little further down the coast to Mandelieu / La Napoule.

We have moved into an apartment, researched in double quick time, at late notice and with very limited internet access. The goal was not to have to keep moving, for David to have a place to be still and write, and for me to be warm.

Where we have ended up serves the intention but we have found ourselves in a kind of generic resort.

The apartment was described as one of three, close to the beach, overlooking a small marina and with a small swimming pool. Turns out to be one apartment in a huge block which is one of three huge blocks, overlooks one of several marinas and has a 33 X 15 metre pool!

In short we could be on the Gold Coast or somewhere in America. Other than the French language this is a 70’s style wonderland seen in resorts the world over.

That said, the place will probably serve better than if we had researched more comprehensively, found somewhere older and more, shall we say, French, that would appeal to David,s photographer,s eye and distract him form working.

Now he has no excuse!

An afternoon in Genoa

There are two people David is collaborating with while we are in the South of France. The first, Thomas, who features in an earlier post and the second Mauro, who lives in Italy just out of Milan.

Mauro suggested that it would be easiest for travel if both parties caught the train and met at a midway point.

And so it was that on Monday morning we set off for a day trip to Genoa. The train as it turns out was not without its problems. We were to catch a French train from Antibes to Ventiglia and then board the fast Italian train to Genoa. The whole trip was to be around 3 hours each way.

Alas the French train was 20 mins late which made us miss our Italian connection. Missing it cost us almost an extra 3 hours as we had to wait around the Ventiglia station for 45 mins and then catch the cabbage train which took forever.

Nothing to do in those situations but roll with it and fortunately we were able to catch Mauro on his mobile who was able to re-jig the logistics in Genoa.

We arrived at 1pm and he took us straight to a small traditional Genoese restaurant which agreed to not only serve us a wonderful lunch but also to allow David and Mauro to use the back of the restaurant as a meeting room (even had internet) for the afternoon to save using more time trekking out to the uni.

Lunch was extremely welcome. There had no buffet car on either train so we were well ready for the traditional Genoese lunch. Small pasta parcels served in a creamy nut sauce, followed by rabbit braised in various veggies, washed down with a crisp Italian white and topped off with coffee that the Italians do better than anyone.

I then left them to it, found a map and headed out for an afternoon around Genoa. I had been keen to come for a couple of reasons.

I had a distant memory of spending a few hours in Genoa as a 10 year old. When we were travelling to England on the ship we came up through the Suez canal (right before it closed) on the Achille Lauro (later the victim of a famous hijacking).

Secondly, because of the Serra family connection with the place. I believe it was the place they landed in when they moved from Spain. We didn’t know all of that when I came through as a child.

I had a great time. The old part of Genoa is a wonderful place to explore and has the largest medieval collection of buildings and alleyways in the world. I did not take photos but later went back, collected David, and whizzed him round some of the tops spots so there are a few photos to share. Unfortunately light was failing by the end but he still captured the overall flavour.

Antibes

We left hurly burly, hustly bustly Istanbul and arrived in Nice, which by comparison is small (about the size of Christchurch) and orderly. The afternoon sun shone through a clear blue sky and the air, a little cooler than Istanbul, was 25 degrees.

But we are not staying in Nice, so after resolving one or two hiccups with our pick–up, we headed 20 km down the coast to Antibes and checked into the Relais du Positillon. We are at the top of this small four story hotel overlooking a little square, and beyond that a marina and castle. We have a balcony with table and chairs (which I get all to myself because being the 4^th floor keeps David indoors).

The wireless doesn’t work up on the 4^th floor so the blog office is now situated under the awning downstairs. The hardships we bloggers must endure!

We enjoyed settling in, then going for an evening promenade to check out swimming spots and cafes. Plentiful supplies of all.

Our host, Thomas Lebourg and his wife, Genevieve, and their three beautiful children came to pick us up the next afternoon for walks, icecreams, more walks, coffees and then a short drive further along to where the Cap d’Antibes has a hill with an old maritime church and great views up the Cote a’Azur.

We feel really fortunate to be here. The month of September is meant to be one of the best for the French Rivieria. The intense crowds of July and August have left but there is still fantastic weather. A bit like taking your holidays in mid February in New Zealand after schools have gone back but the weather at its best.

We are both feeling like it is a good move to have three and a half weeks here. Although we will switch accommodation on Friday we will not be flying anywhere for 25 days in a row.

One last day in Istanbul

We both love this city. Even as we curse ourselves for forgetting to shut the windows and are woken at 5am by the call to prayer at the surrounding mosques, we are both enthralled by the ancient sound that fills the dawn.

We have one final day here. We want to eat wonderful food, delight in the overcrowded streets bustling with life, smell the breeze laden with a million exotic fragrances, feel the caress of warm air, and be stopped in our tracks as we discover new marvels at every turn. We know it is impossible to have our fill of Istanbul in this short time and vow to come back.

And for today we focus on Ayasofia and the Basilica Cistern.

The cistern is and underground cavern created in the Byzantine era to provide a reservoir for times of drought or siege. It is a remarkable feat of building, a subterranean wonderland and also has some delightful flights of fancy for such a practical place, such as columns that rest on Medusa’s head (the photo is not upside down as you can see by the people in the background).

Ayasofia was originally built as a cathedral - 1500 years ago! Later taken over by Moslems and turned into a mosque, and now finally a museum.

So much to see; so little time

I have already done several posts on Istanbul and now need to get more succinct or I’ll still be blogging on Turkey when we get home. There is so much to see and do.

For the next three days while David was at his conference I had a great time exploring Istanbul.

Day One I spent first cruising the streets, then getting my hair cut, and making my way across this huge city of 18 million by tram, bus and train to meet David and attend the conference welcome event at 5pm.

Day Two it was time for some sun and water. I set off on the public ferry system up the straits of Bosphorous. The ferry zigged and zagged across the strait sea making 15 stops along the way, right out to the Black sea.

Once on a serious sightseeing binge I prefer to pick up food on the fly rather than do the big sit down thing, and Turkey is great for that.

On this occasion I was delighted to find a Turkish version of a sausage sizzle. Basic idea of roll, onions and sauce but the Turks version is called fish bread; instead of an overprocessed banger you got a fresh caught, unadulterated, grilled fillet of fish. And instead of bottles of tomato sauce were bottles of lemon juice and salt.

Some time later traders got on the boat with pottles of natural sour yogurt which they served with a spoon of icing sugar on top of – so that made a wonderful dessert.

I got home just in time to freshen up for the conference dinner which was held on the waterfront with a buffet consisting of more than 50 scrumptious Turkish dishes.

Day Three it was time to hit the bazaar and the spice market. The bazaar is the largest in the world with more than 4000 shops. It is spectacular but for all that I preferred the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of the Egytian spice market.

After trekking through both I felt I had walked enough and decided to catch the tram home

....after which a hammam (Turkish bath) seemed like a very good idea.

And no – you do not get pics of me lying in a soapy lather on a marble slab, being scraped and pummelled by a big Turkish mama wearing nothing but her rather worn out, waterlogged underpants (and don’t pretend you are not relieved).