It wasn’t easy to get here, so you might at least look pleased to see us!

“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur? What do you mean, ‘Complet’? It’s taken us an hour to find the bus stop and another 45 minutes to wait for your bus to come along and now you’re saying you’re full?

How are we supposed to get to Saint-Paul if every bloody bus…Ok, d’accord, Monsieur, you only drive the damn thing. Nice beard, by the way.”

We know there often isn’t a lot of public transport into walled mediaeval villages perched on Provencal hilltops. But Saint-Paul-de-Vence isn’t just any mediaeval village. It’s now a tourist mecca, thanks to the artists, past and present, who have lived and worked there. A lot of us want to see it.

After further searching, a visit to the Office de Tourisme, Cagnes-sur-Mer, lunch and a short wait, we found bus 400. For one euro (are there cheaper buses anywhere in Europe?) it took us half an hour inland.

Saint Paul de Vence was made famous by residents Marc Chagall and James Baldwin, Simone Signoret and Yves Montand, who legend has it was a whiz at petanque in the town. Now it draws tourists by the busload to clog its narrow streets and browse its ateliers and souvenir shops.

In a way, Saint Paul serves as an elaborate gift shop for one fabulous museum just out of town. We particularly wanted to visit the Fondation Maeght (we were pleased that even our French friends didn’t know how to pronounce ‘Maeght’), Marguerite and Aime Maeght’s wonderful private collection of paintings and sculpture by Miro, Leger, Bonnard, Gloria Friedmann and others, set in beautiful forest on a hillside.

But first to wander through Saint Paul itself…

The Grand Fountain.

A quiet corner of Saint Paul. There were busy ones right beside it.

Saint Paul alleyway.

Saint Paul arches.

‘Courtesy costs nothing’ read his t-shirt, but this Japanese guide and his party elbowed us aside to get to Chagall’s grave.

…after which, with rain threatening, we tramped about a kilometre up the hill to Fondation Maeght. Few others took the trouble. The museum was almost empty – everybody else’s loss and our gain.

Entry to Fondation Maeght costs EUR15, plus EUR5 for photographic rights. I made sure I got my money’s worth.

Fondation Maeght, with Gloria Friedmann sculpture in foreground.

Joan Miro, Personnage.

Miro’s Labyrinth.

I love the positioning of this Miro, thought the bent tree almost outdoes it.

The bus 400 arrived two minutes after we found the bus stop and took us all the way into Nice (about an hour away) for a euro.

Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror 1999. I presume the punters paid for it.

The prosperity on show in Monte Carlo is compelling evidence that the house always wins in the end.

It was our first trip to Monaco, an easy way to add another country to the notches on our travelling sticks. Much of the surface area of the principality was covered with temporary seating, in preparation for some kind of automobile race.

We skirted round the scaffolding and sidled into the Monte Carlo Casino, wondering, ‘Are we even allowed in there if we’re not going to lose money?’

Mevrouw T and I have a major advantage over the average punter because we don’t know how to gamble. Blackjack and roulette are mysteries to us and we can’t even work poker machines. We see where the money goes in, but what do you do after that?

Perhaps if I went inside and had just one little flutter…

We checked our bags and handed over our IDs, to prove we were over eighteen years of age and good for our debts. Entry to the Salle Europe was free.

No photography was allowed, but I can assure everyone the casino is as over-the-top on the inside as it is on the outside, in an elaborate, nineteeth century, Belle Epoque sort of way. Sadly, when you insert banks of gaudy poker machines they make the most glamorous interior decor look like, well, like Vegas.

A few minutes of trying to understand blackjack and wondering why none of the players seemed to be having fun was enough for us.

We went out onto the terraces behind the building, where the fine art, sponsored, we presume, by the fun and games inside, was well worth appreciating.

Botero, Adam and Eve

Vasarely’s Hexagon 1979

Monolo Valdes, Reina Mariana

The palace where fools and their money part company.

We still had our EUR1.50 for the 20 minute bus ride back to Villefranche. We counted that as being ahead for the day. Most were not so lucky.

Many shops may be selling souvenirs or cafe to tourists, but there’s still charm, at least in the non-high season.

It’s hard to avoid making bad puns on this city’s name, and even harder to make them funny in print or out loud.

It was a nice day for wandering with the camera through the nice streets and museums of Nice.

First, may we congratulate Cote d’Azur public transport? With a EUR1.50 ‘Solo’ ticket we can travel anywhere in the area, hopping on and off any tram or bus for 72 minutes. That odd figure sounds as if a committee couldn’t decide between an hour and 90 minutes as the fairest time frame and negotiated 72 minutes as the best option. It suited us well, travelling about fifteen minutes into central Nice from the outlying town Villefranche-sur-Mer.

We found ourselves at big yellow Garibaldi Square in Nice.

Garibaldi. An impressive first impression…

…and even more impressive when we notice the tromp l’oeil.

In front of us was MAMAC, the Museum d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, so we made it our first port of call.

Arne Quinze’s “Hommage a Alexander Calder” rather overpowers Alexander’s work…

…though it has its own appeal too.

The permanent collection particularly features work by Yves Klein, Jean Tiguely and Niki de Saint Phalle’s witty colourful Nanas.

Niki de Saint Phalle’s fat ladies are perennial favourites.

The bird’s eye views of Nice from MAMAC’s terrace rooftop made us want to get down in amongst it.

View towards Garibaldi from MAMAC.

The vieille ville of Nice is a jumble of narrow streets, always charming to us antipodeans.

As rain threatened, we found ourselves umbrella-less outside the Palais Lascaris. ‘Entree libre’ said the sign, so in we ducked.

Elegant and dry.

The palace featured a small collection of interesting musical instruments – viols, cellos, a Pleyel piano and this…

It’s a piano on one side, a harp on the other. Made by Luigi Caldera, Turin, 1889.

Mevrouw T spent some time trying to buy a useful guidebook to Nice which she found in the palace gift shop. Unfortunately the attendants couldn’t confirm the correct price (despite a phone call to their superiors) and refused to sell it to her. They seemed afraid that if they sold at the wrong price the descendants of the Order of Malta who once owned the palace would start chopping off hands or heads.

So we were back into the street, guideless… The rain had passed and the market stallholders were packing up for the day. The restaurants were open and a few customers (this is still the quiet season) were enjoying fruits de mer.

Food we could have eaten, but didn’t.

The sweet shop Auer (confectionery since 1820) was open for business.

Then we headed out to explore a little more.

Nice. Colourful and relaxed.

There’s probably an instructive story to this fountain – something about not leaving your baby in front of a charging bull, even if it means diving in front of it in a state of undress.

Another fine day had left us each EUR1.50 in our pockets, so we were able to travel back to our ‘home’ in Villefranche on a very efficient Cote d’Azur bus.

Better Homes and Gardens …than ours.

Baroness Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild (1864-1934) not only had deep pockets and plenty to fill them, but also a passion for travel and an eye for beauty in nature, art and architecture.

We’ve just visited her little pad on Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera.

Widowed early and having no children, she left her fabulous villa to the Academie des Beaux Arts, who in turn opened it up to the public. We were most impressed.

If the Cote D’Azur has long been the playground of the well-to-do, the ‘almost an island’ Cap Ferrat was the hideaway of those who were so famous they needed to escape the paparazzi and hoi polloi. Queen Victoria visited. Charlie Chaplin, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Edith Piaf and Jean Cocteau were regulars. Tony Curtis married Romy Schneider here.

Leopold II, King of the Belgians, owned a good slab of the peninsula and was planning to buy more, until Beatrice beat him to it and in 1905 snapped up a few acres to build her dream home, with uninterrupted views across the bays on both sides.

Her particular taste was for the finer things of the 18th century. She would have made a great shopping buddy for Marie Antoinette. In 1907 she started building herself a house that would also serve as a museum for her eclectic collection of objets d’art.

Most of it is a bit flowery for us; we prefer the simple elegance and reasonable prices of Ikea. The craftmanship is marvellous, however.

You get the idea.

Our visit coincided with a rather peculiar wedding ceremony in the garden. The harp and violin did a few practice runs of a Vivaldi passage while an assistant rolled out some white lino. A table was strewn with pink flowers. The rings and celebrant were ready. A photographer lined up countless shots as a radiant bride and groom posed in various glorious locations, accompanied by a bridesmaid in traditional Japanese dress.

The peculiar bit? No guests. This was purely a photo opportunity, it seemed.

I think you need to bring your own harp and violin if you want to get married here.

The gardens are the highlight. There are nine distinct ‘rooms’, each with its own style. While the classical formal French garden was our favourite, we were also pleased to see an Australian garden too, with grevilleas, Geraldton Wax, callistemons and even a rare Wollemi pine taking root.

Eccentric Beatrice may have been, but she also ensured that we common folk could enjoy her collection by bequeathing it all to the Academie who in turn made it part of the Culturespaces collection. They’ve done an excellent job of keeping it presentable for guests.

A vase and a view.

…oh, and could I have a couple more cherubs on the back porch, please?

Thanks very much to my correspondent and fellow blogger Teresa Maria for visiting this blog and suggesting that the gardens of Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild were worth a look. They certainly were!

Teresa Maria thought the roses might be in flower at this time. She was right.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION: Combined entry to the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and the nearby Villa Grecque Kerylos (more about that in another post) costs EUR19. Bus 81 from Nice passes it approximately every thirty minutes.

Sun and cafes – Villefranche-sur-Mer.

It’s a toasty twenty degrees, there are people sitting on the terraces, a few brave souls are stripping off to sunbathe and there are even two people swimming. In the sea. No, not us, but it could have been us.

We’ve organised a week’s apartment swap with Muriel and Jean Louis in Villefranche-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera, the Cote d’Azur. From the sound of it alone, you’d assume only the mega-rich could afford it. This way, we can too.

We get rich people’s boats bobbing in the harbour, Matisse and Chagall on display in their respective museums just up the road and the Cannes Film Festival about to start a little further along the beach. Across the water from our apartment we can see the notoriously prosperous St Jean Cap Ferrat.

Thanks to www.homeforexchange.com this is costing us no more than a modest airfare. Muriel’s parents, our guests in Amsterdam, have mercifully reported that they’re happy with their part of the deal and are enjoying the views of the Schinkel Canal and the Vondelpark despite the drizzle.

We can stock up with cheese, bread, quiches, salad and wine at the shops down below us and make ourselves le pique-nique. We’ll no doubt report on other Cote d’Azur attractions during the week.

Meanwhile, the sun is shining on Villefranche so it’s time to get out and enjoy it, camera in hand.

The cafes aren’t yet crowded, but I bet they soon will be as summer creeps in.

Colourful old back street shots are always enhanced by including a charming local character, or someone who looks local.

There are still quiet corners in the Villefranche old town.

The Villefranche art director probably instructs residents to leave colourful fishing nets lying around for the tourists to photograph. They caught me.

Sexy Vegetables (Groenten) and a happy caravan.

Amsterdam’s Rollende Keukens (Rolling Kitchens) weekend at the Westergasfabriek wasn’t blessed with good weather this year, but plenty of us turned out to sample it anyway.

Now we know what happened to all those VW Bongo vans and the baked bean-shaped caravans that mysteriously disappeared after the 70s – they were turned into mobile food outlets. And very charming they are too.

Who cares what the food is like (though it wasn’t bad either) when there is such a spectacular selection of converted vehicles on display?

It’s not necessarily the ‘worst’ food. ‘Worst’ is Dutch for ‘sausage.’

‘Theetantes’ = ‘Tea aunties.’

The VW Smaakbus (Taste bus).

The Pieper (Spud) truck.

Tennessee Studs provided a bluegrass soundtrack to the event.

Pinxtos with surfboards.

It woudn’t be a food festival without Jamie making an appearance.

Lamb from Texel Island cooked on a bike.

The dispensing vehicle may have been small, but the coffees were regulation size.

The mobile sushi wagon, complete with conveyor belt.

Thanks, Westergasfabriek (Western Gas Factory) for staging the event. Please keep it going!