Picked up our car bright and early (which for France means 9am!). It took us about an hour to actually get completely out of Nice. Headed to Valbonne cause it was used in some scenes from French Kiss. Gorgeous little town. Interesting because the old part was actually laid out in a grid system, so it was all very organised and easy to navigate. “Beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here!” (see the movie!). On our walk through we had to dodge some more road works.
Moved on to Grasse late morning, a much bigger town (also with road works going on!). It had a lot of zig zagging streets, like most of the old towns in the area and cute little shops with tempting things to buy. Very charming and plenty of photo ops for John.
We then did the drive to Gorges du Verdon – the largest canyon in Europe. What a sight that was! It was impossible for the brain to comprehend the scale, because your eyes started to play tricks on you looking at it – Escher sketch like.
We arrived at the tiny village of Aiguines after 5pm to the sprinkling of rain that held off for us to traipse about looking at the views and taking snaps. The hosts at the Hotel du Vieux Chateau were also lovely and helpful and our room had great views of the lake. We were right next to the bell tower of the town, but surprisingly it didn’t bother us at all and we woke at the 8am tolling. Very pleasant, in fact. Our accommodation here also included dinner (not just breakfast), so we had a hearty 3-course meal of ample portions and once again went to bed feeling like gluttons.