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This is one of my favourite photos from our summer holiday, our first evening on the cote d'azur in France.  Who would have thought we would ever be taking a summer holiday on the French Riviera? Not me, that's for sure. What a blissful 7 days of r&r we had there. Our own little piece of summer heaven. How grateful I am for such an amazing adventure. Thank you Matthew, Love you. Al xx

more of beautiful theoule, a piece of monaco and a little bit of nice

As with my previous post I think I will just put the photos up and give a few details in the captions rather than ramble on with trivia about our holiday...

Monaco

A few snaps of Monaco taken from the car as we arrived. Love the old apartments hugging the side of the mountain and crowding the roads.

Oh look Matthew! It's us! 

Beautiful Monaco...

Not quite sure if you can see them clearly, but I'm loving these chandeliers on the terrace of this apartment - certainly adds a bit of a wow factor! Wonder how they'd look on my terrace? 

The kids taking a dip in the glorious Mediterranean Sea, they even spotted some very colourful fish while snorkelling.

Pretty happy with myself - eating a Monaco Bar in Monaco. How cool is that!

The white umbrellas on the private beaches.

Casino Monaco - very James Bond (even with Aston Martins parked out the front)! 

The Esterels 

The red of the Esterel Mountains certainly provided a spectacular backdrop to the blue waters of the Cote d'Azur...

and just around the corner from where we stopped to take these photos was the pretty little village of Agay and its peaceful bay. A perfect place to stop for an icecream on the beach and to watch the sunset. Bliss. I don't ever want to leave.

How about that for a new moon rising on the French Riviera? Beautiful? Oui!

Grasse

The village of Grasse in Provence - home of French parfum (yes I did buy a large bottle - well when you are in the birthplace of perfume, it is your duty as a woman to buy perfume!)

From the outside you would never know that this little cathedral in Grasse, the 11th century Notre Dame du Puy, was home to a small collection of Rubens paintings...

It's always worth having a wander through the churches, so many treasures to see...

The original perfumer

Oh, I do love a good basket shop! Got a nice one from here.

How cute is that Orangina umbrella?

And I do love a wander through old lane ways. Grasse had quite a few of those. 

Did you know Grasse was the birthplace of French actor Gilles Marini (Brothers and Sisters & Sex in the City movie fame)? It was also home to the Fragonard family, famous French perfumers (from where I bought my bottle of parfum) and was the death place of Edith Piaf and Prince Eugen of Bavaria? I didn't know these fascinating facts either, but now we do!  

Nice

Taking in the sea air from the promenade in Nice, which was rather nice!

The beach along the promenade in Nice.

Chateau de La Napoule, Mandelieu-la-Napoule 

Mandelieu-la-Napoule is the coastal village next to Theoule and the Chateau de La Napoule a French castle restored in the 1920's by American artists Henry and Marie Clews. Full of secret gardens and terraces overlooking the azure sea. 

I loved wandering through the gardens and seeing a lot of the plants and trees we have at home - agapanthus, hibiscus, lavender, rosemary and especially the pines which were such a huge part of my childhood - I love their knobbly roots sticking up out of the ground.  Rather than making me feel homesick it made me really happy to be here and to have the chance to experience this little part of France. Who would have thought it, me - not homesick? I know it shocked me too! 

It was such a stunning place.

(This photo is from the Chateau de La Napoule website to show the view of the castle if you approach it from the water by boat)

The view from the top of Theoule looking back down over to Cannes and Nice.

One last sunset on the beach and a play in the water for the kids...

Boy oh boy, it was very, very hard to say good bye to Theoule. It was with tears in our eyes that we waved it off and hit the road again, this time headed for Italy...I know, it's a hard life! : ) Hoped you enjoyed a little piece of our French holiday. 

Alison xx

theoule sur-mer, south of france

We have so many photos from the South of France that I think I'll split them up into different posts. And I think I'll just let the photos talk for themselves, with a few little captions and descriptions now and then.

This was our first evening in Theoule - love that silvery moon.

The view from our villa.

There were holiday villas as far as the eye could see...

I love their blue shutters...

This was our villa, right in front of the pool - the kids were in heaven.

It's always a bit of a gamble when you book an apartment or house online, but this gamble payed off.  

Theoule is only about 30 minutes from Cannes...so this was our day out in Cannes - we couldn't wait to get there and have a good wander around. 

Just one of the small boats in the marina! 

This was the only boating we got up to in Cannes.

On THE red carpet! How exciting!

Beach life ...Cannes style. Private beach and ...

...public beach.

Pretty happy with myself...just got a bag full of French macaroons from the very chic L'Atelier Jean Luc Pele in Cannes.  If you want to see some more pics from this patisserie check out Foodbeam's blog here.

Le Chat - our nightly visitor...right at dinner time, looking to share a meal with us! 

Our other nightly visitor, a beautiful boat that pulled into the bay at Theoule each evening. It looked so pretty all lit up at night.

We used the villa at Theoule as our base and ventured out on daily trips in and around the surrounding Provence area. Fayence is a large medieval village perched way up high on a hill giving spectacular views of the plain below. 

Note the blue shutters... I love them!

photo taken from beyond.fr to show Fayence perched on the side of a hill

Next day out was to Monaco and then on to Grasse - home of French perfume. Photos to follow. We were loving our summer holiday of a life time - what a great adventure! 

Alison xx