Paris

Driving up from Vence to Tourettes sur Loup you must pass the GALERIE BEAUBOURG, Chateau Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, 2618 route de Grasse. The owners, Marianne and PierreNahon bought this castle and arranged it into an art gallery. Don't you worry, nothing to do with the Paris Beaubourg tubes and steam pipes. You will just find, as in Paris, Niki de Sainte-Phalle and many other contemporary artists like Schnabel, Cesar, Haring, etc.... As in the Fondation Maeght (object of another later post) the works are displayed inside and outside the chateau. The difference is that you can buy a lot of works. It’s a selling gallery. Avis aux amateurs!!
Continue a few miles on the D2210, clinging to the rock between two deep ravines. Try to imagine or guess the very luxurious villas hidden behind long hedges perfectly pruned. You arrive in TOURETTES SUR LOUP. It is an artists village and important centre for violet production which are grown for the perfume industry in Grasse and certainly one of the cutest villages of the region.
It’s another oppidum where the Ligures lived and were chased by the Romans. After the “Pax Romana” the inhabitants returned to the safe heights of this oppidum.
The Romans who left in AD 476, leaving it open for invasions and massacres that befell its neighbours. The site was fortified by the Saracens and finally fell into the hands of a French family . Black death, religion wars and French revolution took their tool and the population reduced to 850 . Today, it revitalized to 3,000.
The old village is a very well preserved medieval ensemble, sometimes amazingly crooked with no two windows alike or a straight line anywhere. Sometimes I had the impression of a mixture of terracotta houses and tourist shops. There is a square surrounded by white and red chestnut trees and a portal hiding a maze of crooky streets, unexpected staircases where old women sit silently, waiting for their end….
A lot of art galleries and craft shops work mostly for the tourist industry (painted wooden furniture, silk painting) are at work but it seem to me that they are not so over commercialised than the ones in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (see that in another later post). Best time is in the winter, when the village is quiet and looks authentic.
Continue to drive on the D 2210 towards PONT-DU-LOUP where the famous GORGES DU LOUP start, a chasm in the chalk stone mountains between Pont du Loup and Bramafan. Especially at the east side the chasm shows a beautiful piece of nature. The rushing Loup flows through small cascades over the grey rock formations. In Pont-du-Loup is a plant for “fruits confits”. Over a good road we climb the narrowing chasm. Very far below, at the left, the river flows. The water has worn out slippery holes in the yellow and grey rocky walls. At the two tunnels waterfalls take our breath away. At the bridge in Bramafan you return along the west side of the chasm, while climbing in sharp bends. There is parking place where you can stop and look down in the chasm. Impressive. We could also have driven to BAR SUR LOUP, dominated by the Chateau des Comtes de Grasse of which the most famous was the Admiral de Grasse who fought during the American Independence War.
Let’s drive now to GOURDON, along the D 3, dramatic "village perché". The approach gives a stunning view of the village with its sheer drop of several thousand feet below the castle walls. This old and refurbished castle being a private property, filled with genuine bric-a-brac is only to visit by paying a HUGE entrance fee. I would not advise it.
We continue now towards Grasse driving through other waterfalls forests and rocks down the village of OPIO where the Club Med has a village.
Next post we are in Grasse.

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)

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