Cote d'Azur: village perchė

While it is the allure of wealth that attracts many to this part of the coast now, it is the smaller villages that I think give it its real charm. During the week we visited several village perchė or hill top towns and when I say hill top I mean villages that cling to the cliff edge by their fingernails.

St-Paul-de-Vence is a village perched on a hill which made it an ideal ville fortifiėe dating from the twelth century. While it has pretty cobble lined streets, being so close to Nice means that all the shops have been taken over with art shops and clogged with the same American bus-load of tourists that have just been to Monaco. Outside the village it was nice to see life go on for the locals with a game of pétanque in the village square.

La Cleee-sur-Loup is another village founded in 1540 and somehow remains a quiet sleepy village. There was the familiar art shops found in many of these villages (the Cote d’Azure was famous for artists from Picasso to Matisse drawn to the areas natural beauty, Mediterranean light and vibrant colours), but it still retained its remote feel (I expect it has more to do with the windy steep roads restricting the big coach load of American tourists getting this far up the mountain). The maze of little lanes, pretty shuttered windows painted vibrant blue, the red okra walls, the natural spring water bubbling in a stone drinking fountain, much as it probably has for a hundred years. A picture-postcard place.

Another village I liked was Frėjus. A larger town with Roman origins founded in 49BC. I ventured up there early in the morning just as the sun was rising and the birds, cats and people were beginning to go about their morning rituals. With the smell of fresh coffee filling the small cobble streets, the old ladies bringing in their washing that is hung from their windows 2 stories high, cafės un-stacking their chairs in preparation for their morning customers and ladies carrying their freshly baked baguettes home for breakfast, it was a lovely place to spend the morning and contemplate how we were not missing the rain back in England.

But unfortunately all good things must come to an end.