Since we’ve been coming to Provence, I’ve collected a set of places I’d like to visit…St. Paul de Vence is at the top of my list so we hired Christophe to drive us there–it is a long way from Maussane.
Christophe picked us up in his 9-passenger van at 9AM for our day-long trip to St. Paul de Vence and other places along the way. Just outside of St. Remy we rode through Mouriés, the town that produces the most olives in France. In that area there were small olive groves and big estates everywhere. We moved on from quaint villages to a tolled highway, green tree covered mountains and the outskirts of Aix en Provence. One of the important and obvious sites near here is Mount Saint Victore which Cezanne painted often, at least once in every season. As we drove to the other side of Aix, vineyards became more prevalent than olive groves. The vines are still leafless this early in spring so they look like big forked sticks in the ground. There is more varied elevation here, and many of the higher mountains are treeless. Past Aix we entered a densely forested area with small cleared horse farms and vineyards. The houses in all of Provence are roofed in terra cotta tile and the outside walls are plastered. The color of the plaster varies from very light earthy pink to yellow ocher to various shades of terra cotta. Years ago the colors were created from the rocks and minerals found nearby but today, I’m sure, they come from a place like Sherwin Williams. Because the plaster colors are from nature, the houses often form a lovely backdrop to the surrounding vineyards, groves and forests.
We reached the Listerelle mountains–tiny villages, no farms of anything, only forests. We crested a hill and Cannes appeared–a big modern city with high rise apartment buildings and a view of the Bay of Cannes. In a few minutes we could see snow covered alps! We continued through a highly populated area between Cannes and Nice with the Mediterranean to our right and the Alps in front of us. Even in this densely populated area most of the housing high rises are painted the same yellow ochre to terra cotta hues. Finally, we spotted the medieval village of St. Paul de Vence high on a hill to our right.
We loved walking up to and through the oldest medieval village along the Coast of France. The village was filled with interesting albeit expensive art. And most of the art we loved was too big to carry home! 
As is typical of these towns, St. Paul de Vence is at the top of the highest hill around, so the view from the far end of the town is glorious! We didn’t go through the cemetery we saw but Marc Chagall was buried there. In fact, it was a very frequented area for artists of his time. Our lunch spot, Colombe d’Or, is a hotel/restaurant where artists traded their art work for food or lodging. Picasso, Magritte, Miro and Calder painted some of the art we saw inside of the hotel.
Across from the hotel was a pétanque field and a game was going on as we walked past. The pétanque ball sculpture is on the other end of the field. Unfortunately we only had two hours in the town and we could have stayed there for an entire day! We left there and drove through Nice (the harbor), Eze (way up on a hill) and Monaco (couldn’t get recognizable photos of anything!) and although we saw them from the car window as we sped along, we did see the “must see” sites.
Except for the detour along the beautiful Mediterranean, the drive home was mostly a repeat of the drive over. We returned to our villa at nearly 7:30, shared happy hour, ate another tasty salad and retired. Another beautiful day in our Provencale Paradise!
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