Villefranche 7/14

Sept 14th
Villefranche

I had a really great tour to go on today, a 9 hour excursion taking me to Grasse, Cannes, and St. Paul-de-Vence. So I left early that morning to get on my bus and head out to Grasse, our first stop.
In Grasse, the tour took us to a perfume manufacturer, Fragonard. We went inside the factory where we got to see the scientists running tests or experimenting with new scents, someone making bars of soap, and others bottling and packaging the perfume. After the tour, we had an hour or so in their showroom where we were overloaded with smells. It was amazing just walking through this place though for that reason, scents would change in a matter of feet and be just as strong as the last. It was just unbelievable to have that much scent everywhere. My tour guide actually bought me a bottle of shower gel (which I’ve been liking), so that was nice. The bottle was probably free for her, but I really appreciated the gift.
Following that stop, we loaded into the bus and headed for Cannes, home of the Cannes Film Festival that occurs every may I believe. Traffic was awful, so we lost some time staring at the cars in front of us, but eventually got dropped off by the water front and downtown Cannes. Some stores in the area included, Gucci, Armani, Rolex, and many other designers I’m not as familiar with. We had maybe 90 minutes in the area to walk around or eat, or in my case, find bathroom. I was too dumb to take advantage of the Grasse stop, and by the time we were at Cannes and done sitting in traffic, I was about to explode. So I started running around the city looking. Unfortunately, most shops in the area don’t have bathrooms or you have to buy something first. Well, being the Cheap-o that I am, wasn’t about to wait in a line to buy something just to use a bathroom, and was determined to find a place. My first thought after walking down one of the streets with shops was to go in the supermarket I saw, a good idea in the US, not in Cannes. So after that failure, I ran back to the McDonalds I saw when the bus dropped me off, thinking that’d be a foolproof solution. But in Cannes, people are determined to make others pay to be comfortable, and this particular McDonalds had keypads on the bathroom doors, in which a code would be given to you on your receipt after purchasing something. The place was packed, lines long, and I wasn’t about to ask someone for their receipt and left to find another place. I ran all through the area looking for something, a bar or shop that I could sneak into, but nothing seemed feasible. I eventually broke down and went to a bakery and asked to use their bathroom saying I’d buy bread afterwards, but in their broken English, they let me know they didn’t have what I was looking for. They did however point me in a direction, so I went where I thought she was gesturing to. I ended up back where I started the whole thing, but this time, saw signs elevated above the street attached to building walls pointing towards “toilettes”. Followed those, still managed to get confused, and eventually found a small pink building in a corner that the signs must have been pointing to. After that long awaiting relief, I set back out to actually enjoy this beautiful city. I grabbed a great chicken sandwich on a baguette, and just walked around taking pics and looking in the shops. It was a great area though and I’d love to return there and get a better feel for the city sometime.
Following Cannes, we left for St. Paul, a Medieval city outside of Nice. It was a really cool place too, completely different from the other areas I had been in, and the architecture of the city was something you’d only find in medieval Europe. I had a fun time just walking through the city exploring the different side streets and filling my camera, and then headed back to the bus to drive back to Villefranche.
When I made it back, I found my Internet café and was able to sit online for a bit and make some posts until the connection died for what appeared to be the rest of the night. I spent the next 2 hours fighting to revive the connection there and at a different café, but again was left unsuccessful in Villefranche, stupid technology. I went back to the ship then and enjoyed the rest of my day off. Fun day though, and a good tour taking me to see different things!