After a very long winter I finally managed to get away on holiday to somewhere hot and sunny – which means that you are in for a photo post. You can revel vicariously in my photos of sun, sea and quirky ceramics, or you can just skip this one if it would make you too envious.
I went by train, trying to be all environmentally sound, but unfortunately the outward journey was horrible. However, I made it to Nice, only slightly late and not too visibly dishevelled, where I spent a few hours wandering around the city until it was time to travel to Antibes, where I was going to stay. Nice is huge – there are 400,000 inhabitants, according to one of my dorm-mates on the couchette. But the old town was nice, with good restaurants, and the sun was splitting the skies, which made a lovely change after Scotland’s eternal winter.
(Click on the photos to see a bigger version.)
So then it was on to Antibes, which was far nicer than I had anticipated. And the smell! Technology has not yet reached the point of scratch’n’sniff websites, but take my word for it that Antibes smelled of jasmine and mimosa. It was heavenly! And it doesn’t look too bad, either.
I took a bus tour round the Antibes peninsula and got stranded for an hour or so at Garoupe Bay when the bus driver decided to leave early, but there are far worse places to be stranded.
On the other side of the peninsula is Juan les Pins, a much more modern, art deco place where F. Scott Fitzgerald used to live. Prices are a bit silly (as they are everywhere on the Côte d’Azur), but I enjoyed dining on the beach at a real table.
I took the opportunity to go to the Grand Prix at Monaco while I was there, although only the practice races on the Thursday (a fraction of the price of the real thing). Monaco was ridiculous. Ridiculously opulent and ridiculously vertical. They have public lifts to take you from one vertiginous street to the next! It’s the kind of place you’re glad you’ve seen, but don’t especially want to go back to. And the car racing? Very loud, very smelly (petrol fumes), but fun to watch.
I’d seen so many pretty seaside towns and villages along the coast from Nice to Monaco that I decided to break my journey on the way back and visit one of them. I chose Villefranche-sur-Mer, which is conveniently close to the railway line and which looks a little like a Scottish seaside town, with colourful buildings curving around a bay, but one where all the buildings are cafes charging willing tourists frankly laughable prices. I think the most I have ever paid for a coffee was in Villefranche, but the view and the sunshine were priceless.
But probably my favourite bit of the holiday (other than the smell of Antibes) was the hill villages. I went to Grasse, the home of perfumery, Mougins, known for its art and cuisine, and Biot, famous for glass, ceramics, and having once belonged to the Knights Templar. They don’t call them villages perché for nothing, and my legs were killing me after all the climbing up from inconveniently located train stations! In Grasse I got hopelessly lost, and to find the perfumery I had to follow a kind workman who was going my way, but he went up the slopes and staircases at his usual workday speed, and I had some difficulty in keeping up!
Grasse
Mougins
Biot
It would seem from the number of photos I took that I liked Biot best, which is probably right. And I would never have gone if the man at the tourist information hadn’t told me that it was much easier to get to than Mougins and Grasse. Not that it stopped me going to both Mougins and Grasse on the same day. Not recommended, if you value comfortable calf muscles.
And that was my holiday over – except that I managed to squeeze in a few hours in Marseille on the way home, as well as lunch with a friend in Paris. The lunch was very good (Terminus Nord, in front of Gare du Nord, if you’re ever in that part of Paris), although I didn’t take any pictures, so here are my photos of Marseille.
Marseille was kind of gritty, as I had been warned, but it was lively and fun. There would be plenty to see and do on a longer trip. Unfortunately the Marseille accent almost scuppered my shaky French proficiency, but up to that point the French speaking had been going much better than I expected, which was a nice bonus. People in the south of France seem to be very patient with the stumbling efforts of les étrangers.
I hope you enjoyed that, rather than just being green with envy. If you have any questions, go ahead and drop them in the comments.
À bientôt!
K C Murdarasi 
It’s a wonderful corner of the world.