The sweet smell of success

It was time to escape the glitz and glamour of the Cote d'Azur, and so we headed out of Nice on the train, bound for Grasse.

Grasse is renown for perfume, after Catherine de Medici encouraged the locals to take advantage of the surrounding rose gardens to found the industry that draws visitors to its steep slopes. And boy, are those slopes steep... The indicated 200 steps to the town are strictly accurate, if you factor in the long sloping bits between them. The bus, on the other hand, winds its way up the slope for a very reasonable 1€.

And Grasse is everything that Monaco isn't. Narrow streets shaded from the sun, little squares, a nice main street, fountains and interesting little shops, it is somewhere that I would recommend. All of this just over an hour from Nice, and allowing for a stop in Cannes or Antibes along the way, an excellent day out.

And yes, I did feel it necessary to purchase something for Ros...