Smelly Grasse (17th August)

This was a pretty relaxing morning around the hostel, getting food from the Monoprix and finding out information about the bus network. Today we head to the centre of the perfume universe for the last two hundred years - Grasse. Part of the reason for going is that the original Fragonard perfumery factory is there - which is open to the public and provides a background to the art and the history of perfume making. Although there is a closer factory shop in Eze, it's definitely worth the 1 euro for the 1.5 hour bus trip out to this quaint little town. It's not the most beautiful village, but it's pretty cool... literally because the buildings are built so close together meaning the narrow roads are protected from the heat of the sun. The contrast between the heat of the sun and being in the shade is massive on a 35 degree day like today! Fragonard is an impressive operation - it's wonderful to be able to have a guided tour of the factory, especially because you can wait for a tour in English! Did you know that a 'nose' (a perfume developer) can differentiate between 250 scents after their first 3 years of study - and will increase this to over 2500 by the end of their 10 years of training? It was also interesting that the reason men have a smaller percentage of 'essence' in their aftershave is that their skin reacts differently and would give off more smell than female skin. The tour (not surprisingly) ends in the factory shop - where all of the perfumes, soap, body washes etc etc are for sale... Shona was surprisingly restrained. We then went to the Musee Internationale Perfumery which has some really interesting displays on the place of personal odour throughout history. Interestingly, bathing in the late 1800s French society saw bathing as unhygienic and as such never showered. On a nicer note the museum has a room where you let 'your senses guide you'... including sights, sound and of course smell (sadly no taste - as the melon scene had us salivating!) The randomly placed scent machines around the place were fun as well - we think we were able to pick most of them! All in all it was a very fun, pretty cheap, extremely relaxing and brilliantly smelly day out. The only down side is that we weren't able to make it over to Monaco for the changing of the guard - but that's just something that will have to wait for some other time in the riviera! We'd seen a quaint little creperie in Grasse, but at 6pm Shona wasn't hungry for dinner. Then when got back into Nice we searched for what seemed like forever (remember the 1.5 hour drive in between) for one in town. We gave up and had something else... but then of course found one when we went for a walk along the waterfront! So we got our crepe experience and also stumbled across a restaurant called Le Maori... it's amazing what you find in foreign countries!