Paris

When you explore the area west of Grasse, you encounter a lot of places worth the trip. For those looking for rest and quietness they can be used as overnight stay. I will describe you a tour you can make starting from Grasse. It’s about 135 km long.
Start at the road D 4 along the plateau Napoleon leading to CABRIS. 500 meters high, a sort of “balcony” with superb views until the golf de Napoule and the Iles de Lerins. There is a lake named Saint-Cassien where the Canadairs who fight the forest fires, started by stupid, uncaring tourists or criminals, take their water to unload it in the fires.
Cabris is a harmonic assembling of roofs, going up to the discrete 17th century church. It used to be a refuge for the writer André Gide, who found some comfort with Maria van Rijsselberghe, his friend of always and whose daughter he gave a child, non wanted and on the beach of Juan-les-Pins in the month of July 1922. It was just at that period that Gide confessed in its “Corydon” and “Si le grain meurt” that he had homosexual tendencies. What a scandal at that epoch!!
Another colourful citizen of Cabris was Marie de Saint-Exupery, mother of Antoine (writer of “Le Petit Prince”). Her house was so small that her son, the mighty writer-pilot had to spend the night in “HOTEL DE L’HORIZON”. Also Sartre and Albert Camus lodged in this hotel as well as the American composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein who continued to write his works under the pergola. It’s a must to lodge today at least one night at the Hotel de l’Horizon and book a room where you can see the landscape until the Mediterranean lying on your bed.
Also a diner or at least meal at LA CHEVRE D’OR is a MUST. The aubergewas opened shortly after last war and was soon the meeting point for tired intellectuals like André Gide, Roger Martin du Gard, Jacques Rivière, Jules Supervieille, Gallimard, Paul Claudel, Paul Valery, Menri Michaux, André Malraux, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Henri de Montherlant and Giono.
A new small restaurant that took the local ambience and atmosphere very well is “Le Petit Prince”. You can look on the wide fields and chestnut trees from its terrace.
Let’s get now to Antibes. But there is still quite a way to go. First return to Grasse, take the D 2085 direction Villeneuve Loubet but at a certain moment make right into the D 3 to Valbonne.
The sleepy place of VALBONNE took advantage of the neighbouring SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS and it’s university to get out of its economic slump. The endlessly refurbished church was rebuilt with clear Cistercians style and reminds us of a whole other period, the monk order of Chalais settling here in 1199. When those monks came under the rule of the monks of the Island Saint-Honorat (one of the Lerins islands) their goals changed. In the 16th and 17th century, Valbonne was rebuilt in a bastide form . It is still a perfect example of what a perfect bastide should be, with a market place in the middle surrounded by arcades and overshadowed by the grey-green foliage of the micocouliers. Thanks to Sophia Antipolis there is an English Bookshop in Valbonne.
Continuing along the D 4 we can stop a moment at SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, also named the French “Silicon valley”. We can see immediately that on the 2500 hectares futuristic headquarters are scattered of tech companies like Digital, Dow Corning or Dow Chemical. Nothing really thrilling! Sophia Antipolis opened in 1974, idea of Pierre Laffitte, director of the prestigious Ecole de Mines in Paris, to give scientists and technical people the opportunity to work on their ideas on the highest level and gather them every month to discuss their work.
Next article: Biot and the musee Fernand Leger.

Bibliography:

John Pemble, "the Mediterranean Passion, Victorians and Edwardians in the South", (Oxford University Press 1988), Mary Blume, "Cote d'Azur. Inventing the French Riviera" (Thames and Hudson, London 1982) Stephen Liegeard, "La Cote d'Azur (Ed.Serre, Nice 1988),Patrick Howarth, “When the Riviera was ours” (Century, London 1977, Peter Graham, “La France par les petites routes” (Ed.Arthaud 1988), “De Franse Silicon valley”, by Ed. Vandevelde (ed.Standaard 1996)

From Nice to Saint-Tropez (suite)

Cap d'Antibes

Juan les
Pins-Golfe-Juan-Vallauris

Cannes

Iles de Lerins

La Napoule and Henry Clews

Esterel cornice to Frejus

Frejus

Sainte Maxime to Port Grimaud

Old Grimaud and Cogolin

Saint-Tropez

From Saint Tropez to Cassis

Ramatuelle-Gassin-Croix Valmer-Cavalaire sur mer

Le Lavandou-Bormes les Mimosas