Rabbit for our pre-opera dinner in Orange. Rabbit meat is not unusual in French cuisine. I find it generally bland and dry.
Big, fat, pillowy-soft, lightly-seared scallops in Roussillon. It features prominently in the menus of Provence & Cote d'Azur.
Truffles pizza at the Michelin-wannabe in Mougins
Ice-creams everyday, mais bien sur! This one was taken in Roussillon, while waiting for the sun to mellow down. Didn't work -still had to walk in the scorching sun.
Ice-cream again in Grasse. Soph walked up and down the narrow twisted alleys looking for one that served strawberry-flavoured ones.
Seafood in Cannes. Not sure what this is, but it's definitely part of the snail family. They served them as tidbits while we were waiting for our main course.
Our enormous seafood platter in Cannes. YL and I could not see each other across the table. The oysters were GOOD! The prawns and fish were fresh, but we much prefer the Chinese style of cooking them. Next time, we'll just order oysters and skip the rest.
Our kids are fussy eaters. Fortunately, they love the baguette which is served at every meal in France. They literally pounce on them as soon as the waiters bring them.
And oh, by the way, here's another trick of ours to have some semblance of sanity and indulge in adult talk while travelling with the kids: we carry a small pouch of bits & bobs which the kids can play with ONLY while we are waiting for our meals.
L'Allee des Etoiles (Walk of Stars) in Cannes. The kids were excited to see the great and inimitable Julie Andrews...
Jasmine fields just outside of Grasse. This lady is the current owner and the third generation of her family to run the plantation. They pick the flowers every morning between May-August, and then ship them immediately to the distilleries nearby which then immediately extracts the essence. It takes 1 tonne of jasmine flowers to make 1 kg of essence (something like that...don't quote me...I am an old woman with a failing memory, especially when the lecture was given in French)
We were shown how to pluck the flowers, and given the chance to try it.
The annual Jasmine Festival in Grasse. There was a parade of flower-themed floats filled with young girls throwing flowers into the crowds. They went crazy whenever flowers flew their way, and we had to jump far away instead of TOWARDS the flowers in order to avoid being trampled. The whole thing ended with firemen spraying scented water into the crowds. (The French have this thing for their firemen, don't they?...)
The perfumed siesta. As part of their summer programme, some public buildings in Grasse offered places for visitors to nap (that's what they say...) in perfumed surroundings. Here we were in the gardens of the International Museum of Perfume in Grasse. They had installed pipes in the bushes that released jasmine-scented mists every few minutes. That explains why the people behind us were sitting facing the bushes.
Arles was where Van Gogh hit his creative breakthrough. He described the "vivid light" in Arles, which brought him to develop the style that we have now come to associate with him.
I had charted a few places with Van Gogh connections, and asked YL to select and lead us to one or two places. The first place he took us to, after walking & searching for 15 minutes, was closed. You can see how amused I was. This was the hospital where he (Van Gogh, not YL) spent a year after his mental illness deteriorated, culminating in the event where he cut off a part of his ear lobe after an argument with another painter, Gauguin. Van Gogh eventually shot himself 2 years later.
While making our way to the Monte Carlo Casino, we came across this obstacle course for children just in front of the harbour. For some bizarre reason, we did not think it was a bad idea to bake under the hot sun for 30 minutes while Soph attempted to complete it. She did quite well, I must say, and the whole family enjoyed cheering her on.
At the Ephrussi de Rothschild villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. It was built in the early 1900's for one of the Rothschilds, Beatrice. It was an airy, classy villa, befitting a baroness and a member of such an influential family. We spent a good hour and a half exploring the gardens and its many rooms. If you have ever wondered how the super rich, uber powerful socialites live, check out this villa.
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