And now we come to the last stop on our trip to the Provence region, the unofficial world capital of perfume, the city of Grasse.
Grasse is located in the Southeastern part of France close to the strip of Mediterranean waterfront cities of the French Riviera. Its not along the coast itself but more inland in the hilly mountainous interior.
Its relatively close to the city of Nice though and just a little ways North of Cannes, under an hours drive from both I'd say.
Before our trip I did a bit of research on the town and based on photos that I saw online, I originally thought that it was a really small town in the mountains, another "Perched Village," similar to Eze. It wasn't like that at all though.
Grasse was much much larger than I expected; more of a mid-sized city than a small town in fact.
It was spread out along the hillside and very sprawling as you can see in some of the photographs.
It did have a very nice old quarter though, which was less spread out and more concentrated in one area. Of course, that was where we spent all of our time in the city.
The old quarter was located on a hilltop and we parked our car some distance below and then walked up to have a gander.
One of the first things that we saw when we got to the old quarter was the perfume factory. There are three of them in town and you can actually create your own perfume there. That could be a neat activity to do in town if you have the time and interest. I myself like the idea of playing "mad scientist," and creating a new scent.
Note the clouds in the photo below, they almost look like sent fumes coming off the building. That would be fitting if it were truly the case.
There is also at least one museum in town, which is one of the only museums dedicated to perfume, scents and aromas.
Smell is such an under rated sense in my opinion. What do you think?
Brief History
The perfume industry began in Grasse in the 16th century when the city began to supply raw materials to Persian scent makers. From there it began to produce soaps from flowers such as rose, hyacinths and iris, many of which were grown in the surrounding area.
Today, the town is unofficially considered the perfume capital of the world and still grows many scented flowers that are used to make aromas. Source
A little ways past the museum was a large platform that was an outdoor park area of sorts. We saw one of those yellow tour trains there that are common in most tourist spots in France.
There were a few look out spots up there as well with some great views of the town and city below.
Pink Umbrellas
The old quarter was decorated with these large pink umbrellas.
They were a really nice pop of color, a whimsical contrast against the yellow of the surrounding buildings and the blue of the sky.
They were a neat little art piece that made the old town all the more charming.
As you can see I took quite a few photos of them.
I don't know how many there were but there were a lot of them hanging up and down the streets.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, get ready for a bunch of pictures of umbrellas!
The old quarter was made up of narrow streets winding their way through tall buildings.
There were plenty of artisinal shops there selling ceramic pottery, artwork, and of course lots of scents and soaps.
My wife bought a bottle of her favorite alcohol there, Mistral Gin. It's pink Gin and infused with 12 different botanicals.
We drank the gin back in France but kept the bottle as a souvenir. I guess we're nerds that way. Maybe we will use it as a water carafe or something, a little trick I learned from some of the restaurants that we ate at in Europe.
We explored the old town for a decent amount of time, just wandering the streets and seeing where they would take us.
In a way the umbrellas acted like a sort of guide for us. They were clustered tightly in the main shopping street and much more sporadic as you moved away from the area.
If we wanted to make our way back to the center, all we had to do was follow the pink markers and pretty soon we would be back to where we started.
At one point we found the village cathedral.
It wasn't as grand as some of the gothic churches of some of the larger cities in France but it had a lot of character with its 30m tall square bell tower.
There was a wedding, or maybe a confirmation taking place that day so we couldn't go inside.
In front of the church was a nice little plaza with this square monument at the center.
I don't recall what the monument was in honor of, but I did think that it was impressive when standing in front of it.
Behind the church I saw this sign pointing to various cities around the world. The cities appeared to be very random at the time (ex. Marblehead USA?). I found out afterwards that they are all Twin/Sister cities of Grasse, which I thought was pretty interesting.
We wandered around a little more but didn't see anything else of note.
That's usually a good indication that it's time to leave a place, so we headed back to our car and back to Aix-en-Provence for dinner.
Overall, Grasse was a bit different than I was expecting, but in the end we really enjoyed it. We learned a little about perfume and fragrance, and bought my wife's favorite gin as a souvenir. I'll always remember Grasse for its pink umbrellas and really hope that they are permanent fixture that others can enjoy in the future as well.