Relaxing on the Riviera

Monday 16^th June

A few places on the list to visit today. We started with the medieval village of St Paul de Vence which was only 10k from where we are staying. Again the village is perched on a hill and a bit of a trek up there, but unlike Eze yesterday, this village had a lovely feel to it, and there were some lovely views back towards Antibes. It was quiet when we were there, a few small tour groups, and some Australian accents heard, but the village is not on the agenda for the big tour groups.

 

Walking along the remparts on the outer edge of St Paul de Vence.

Views back towards Antibes.

The village was very colourful
with a lot of climbing plants and pots of colour.

This village also had a lot of ‘art’ shops and boutiques, but it did not seem to be as commercial as Eze and did retain its small village feel. There were some really lovely little streets and lanes. This town is also the burial place of Marc Chagall, the French artist. There were a lot of coins on his grave – a very old tradition of paying the ferryman to assist the dead to move to the next life. We spent quite a while just wandering the town.

Marc Chagalls grave.

One of the streets in St Paul de Vence.

Another of the streets in St Paul de Vence.

There were some very colourful letterboxes in the village.

And when we turned around and looked up
we saw these colourful pots on the windowsills.

From St Paul de Vence we then moved on to Vence. This town also had an old medieval section and in this area we found a church, Our Lady of Nativity Cathedral from the 12^th century, which displayed a mosaic of ‘Moses saved from the Nile’ done by Chagall.

 

The mosaic by Marc Chagall.

Our Lady of the Nativity Cathedral.

Our last stop for the day was the town of Antibes. Here we took a ride on the little train that does a short tour of the town. The train also took us to Juan les Pins which is a major holiday destination popular with the international jet-set, with casino, nightclubs and beaches. Antibes is another place where you can find more big yachts. Again, they seemed to get bigger and bigger. Having shopped for our yacht we figured out that we weren’t done yet – there is a whole wardrobe that one needs to have to do the part properly. We passed several ‘yachting attire’ shops in our travels.

One of the beaches at Antibes,

A few of the boats in town.

The old village in Antibes.

The old village in Antibes.

Dog of the day.

Old Antibes.

Tuesday 17^th June

The best laid plans….

We had intended today to take the Pine Cone Train which travels up into the mountains north and west of Nice. We had seen on the TV that something was going on with the trains and were told it was a strike, but some trains were still running. When we got to the station at Antibes to buy our tickets to Nice, we found out the Pine Cone train was not running, so plans cancelled. The laundry was building up so we finally tracked down a laundromat and got the washing done. The day was not a wasted day – we had lunch in Antibes, back to the hotel, and planned out the next week to get back to Paris. Tomorrow we head north.