Adios, France

It’s time for us to head home. We spent two of our Antibes days touring with Ingrid, owner of Best French Riviera Tours. With Ingrid, we were able to cover St. Paul de Vence, Eze, and Menton in France and we were even able to cross the border into Italy to see Bordighera and Dolceaqua. That’s 5 more little villages added to an already-extensive list that Tom and Road Scholar worked out for us.

The French villages are your standard gorgeous sites and I’ll get to those in a minute. But my number one goal for this area was Dolceaqua, based, as always, on a picture I saw online. You might recall that I sold Ron on the idea of heading over into Italy because Dolceaqua is famous for having its very own doughnut, called a Michette. Ingrid, however, despite offering tours to this area for 20 years, was unaware of this doughnut, which was not promising from a pastry point-of-view.

Here’s our approach to Dolceaqua and I am sure that my little touring group was doubting my village choice at this point. But there’s magic inside Dolceaqua so be patient.

The village is a gorgeous maze of warren-like alleys. Here’s a sampling of what we saw (bottom pic not mine – my camera battery died in Dolceaqua).

It was a fine thing that the village itself was gorgeous because the Michetta were a bust. Ingrid asked many many villagers about our doughnut and everyone told her that the one bakery that could really make a good Michette was closed for a vacation. Undeterred, though, Ingrid led us to three stores that had Michetta available and, intrepid travelers that we are, we ate a sample at each location. (In case you are considering touring with Ingrid, you should know that she is loyal to her guests and every time Ron and I downed a Michette, she was right there with us, eating stale and substandard pastry.) Here’s one of our trials with Ron, looking about as unexcited as he’s ever looked about a baked good.

Contrast that picture with this one, where Ron is eating a custard-filled Mille Feuille somewhere in a French hill town, as instructed by Tom in his parting words to us back in Toulouse:

Ingrid then took us over to Menton, which is the last town in France before you cross the border. Here’s our approach from inside Italy and then a picture mid-stroll through the village.

On our second touring day with Ingrid, we focused on French hill villages. There is a marked contrast in architecture and maintenance between the French villages and the Italian ones. I was smitten with Dolceaqua but Sam and Kris were definitely wowed by St Paul de Vence and Eze. I will admit that it’s impressive that the St. Paul de Vence city budget includes this Glutton robotic machine that roams the streets, picking up dog waste. (Cost to purchase, for you dog owners tired of bending down: $24,000) To increase your knowledge of France and French village life, click here to watch a video about the development of the Glutton and see up close video of a variety of items getting sucked up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqS4Bb5vYmM

Here’s a couple of hill town shots from the French side:

And here’s another in my continuing series of unintelligible signs. Our group consensus was this was attempt to convey the concept of a T in the road that led to two dead ends and Ingrid endorsed our interpretation:

And I will leave you with these: one from the top of Eze and one special chien, trying to be as French as possible. As ever, I’ve had a blast. My French skills were basically non-existent. For all of my preparation, I spoke only two words: hello and thank you – and even for those, I often mistakenly offered up Spanish instead. But it really never matters. The enthusiastic and open-minded traveler always seems welcome and – especially in this time of tentative and tenuous travel – we were greeted with smiles and open arms. Travel – as ever – is the best reminder of the things that bind us together and I’m grateful for every journey I get to take.

I will talk to you all in March – from Portugal? Spain? Morocco?