The Cote d'Azur

In which I visit Grasse and wonder if Coco Chanel was right: Do women who don't wear perfume really have no future? And then I soak up the blue of Henri Matisse, Yves Klein and the Mediterranean sea.

{Provence, France}

Have I mentioned that it is the second hottest summer on record in the south of France? I’m pretty sure I have…it’s hard to think about anything else, to be honest. The heat has me googling: did you know that only 5% of French homes have air conditioning? It is this way across all of Europe - 10% is the average, continent-wide. It is just the opposite in the United States, where about 10% of homes don’t have air conditioning. Whether or not this is a good thing is certainly debatable - it is, obviously, far better for the environment to skip the air conditioning. But still, it is a little cultural difference that takes some getting used to.

Cars, thankfully, do have air-conditioning. And as the mercury creeps near 100 degrees in Arles, it seems like the perfect time for a road trip.

If there’s one thing that I know for sure, from the tips of my toes to the depths of my soul, it’s that I’m not French Riviera material.

Being a child of the 80s, the words “French Riviera” conjure up memories of endless late-night reruns of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and Bain de Soleil commercials featuring impossibly tan (and thin) models in tiny bikinis and huge sunglasses. And I’m not going to lie, any place that Robin Leach visited is not likely to be somewhere where I’d like to hang my hat. And yet, there’s one city that I’ve wanted to see for ages and ages: Grasse, a town just inland from the French Riviera that has been the center of the perfume industry in France since the 17th century.

And so - with a ridiculously cheap last-minute hotel deal, a tiny little rented Renault and an absolute certainty that I will be the single least glamorous person on the Cote d’Azur - I hit the road, humming the opening bars of Charles Trenet’s “La Mer” as I set off along the coast.

When your eyes first fall upon the Mediterranean you know at once why it was here that man first stood erect and stretched out his arms toward the sun…It is the fairy blue of Maxfield Parrish’s pictures; blue like blue books, blue oil, blue eyes, and in the shadow of the mountains a green belt of land runs along the coast for a hundred miles and makes a playground for the world.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

{La Cote d’Azur, France}

Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Nice…the cities that dot the azure coast form an intimidating constellation of glamour on my map. Grasse is a bit further inland, and part of me wants to just cut across the countryside and bypass the glitz altogether. But I tell myself it would be silly to be so close to the famous French Riviera and not at least take a look, and so I decide to drive along the coast before cutting inland.

Halfway into the city of Cannes it becomes clear that the only thing worse than the heat in this part of France is the traffic. It is a nightmare, inching along at an elderly snail’s pace. What seems like an hour after I hit the city limits I am still nowhere near the blue sea, or the famous Croisette and so I give up. The French Riviera can wait. I turn left and head into the hills that will lead to Grasse…I can always take the train back down to the coast later.

Grasse is a slow, winding climb about 30 miles up from the coast. The town itself is perched on a very steep hill - much steeper than it looks in photos. The streets are a crowded series of narrow and crowded switchbacks that make for treacherous driving with a stick shift. After a few wrong turns and a horrifying drive down an incredibly steep street that I discover too late is a dead end, I finally find a place to park.

To be honest, I had expected to drive through a fairyland of blooms on the way to Grasse, but in reality the fields don’t look substantially different than the farm fields of Iowa. The yearly rose harvest, as it turns out, had just ended - it occurs in May and early June every year. Jasmine is harvested in August and September. Other flowers are farmed nearby, as well: irises and lavender, orange blossoms and tuberose - but it is the rose that is the showiest.

That’s okay though, the entire town is a bouquet of color. It is breathtakingly beautiful here.

Grasse has been the heart of the perfume industry for centuries not only because they make perfume here (which they do), but because they grow and process the raw ingredients for perfume. Every year in the fields around Grasse, more than 70 tons of roses are harvested, and similar amounts of violets and jasmine flowers. How much does a flower petal weigh? Not much, so you can begin to imagine how many flowers it takes to produce that quantity of raw material. It has been this way for a very long time…look at perfume bottles in antique shows and you’ll be surprised at how often they are made in Grasse, or that they include “roses de Grasse” or “violettes de Grasse” in their ingredients. Coco Chanel used flowers from Grasse when she started making perfume, and the company that bears her name bought fields nearby in the 1980s to guarantee the supply and quantity. Every single bottle of Chanel No. 5 includes the essence of over a thousand Grasse jasmine flowers.

A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.

-Coco Chanel

The palette here is happier than in Provence - all of the buildings and houses are painted pastel shades of orange, yellow and pink, and bright pink umbrellas line the streets. Flowers overflow hanging baskets everywhere, and the scent of perfume wafts out of cheery storefronts. The town is crowded with tourists - including busloads here to visit the International Perfume Museum.

It is at this museum that I learn that in the Middle Ages, Grasse was famous for its production of leather goods, and not yet for the art of perfumery. In fact, because of the combination of the odors of dead animal skin and the lye required to tan it, Grasse was known as a particularly unpleasant smelling town prior to the 17th-century. The funky smells that emanated from the oils and animal fats used in the tanning process were so intense that eventually tanners plucked flowers from the nearby field to add to their materials. The art of cold enfleurage - a process by which the scent of delicate flowers could be extracted without heat - was born. It was this process, and its uses in perfumery, that made Grasse famous worldwide.

The artist Raoul Dufy spent time in Grasse in the 1920s, and there is a reproduction of his painting of the town square in the town square. I’ve gained a newfound appreciation of Dufy’s paintings this year after spending time with his beautiful Electricity Fairy murals at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and later visiting a swoon-worthy retrospective of his work in Aix-en-Provence. I am slightly embarrassed to say that I had previously categorized his paintings as simply fun and decorative.

It is no wonder that artists flocked to this colorful part of France in the early part of the 20th century. Picasso lived out the last years of his life here, as did Renoir. When I check into the quirky little 19th-century hotel that I’ve made reservations at later that night, I’m thrilled to learn from the owner that Renoir stayed in the small section of the hotel that my room is in just over a hundred years ago. The hotel has a patio with a stunning view out to the Mediterranean miles away, and as I eat breakfast the following morning I imagine the elderly artist sitting on the patio and painting.

The sea is blue, but bluer than anyone has ever painted it, a color entirely fantastic and incredible. It is the blue of sapphires, of the peacock’s wing, of an Alpine glacier, and the kingfisher melted together; and yet it is like none of these, for it shines with the unearthly radiance of Neptune’s kingdom.

-Henri Matisse

The next day I take the train from the pretty pink train station in Grasse down to the coast and over to the city of Nice, passing through Cannes and Antibes on the way. And I am here to tell you that the French Riviera does not look very glamorous from the train. I am reminded of Somerset Maugham’s description of the Riviera as “a sunny place for shady people.” There are a lot of modern high rises, many of which look slightly past their prime and, honestly, a little grimy. I am quite sure that there are a lot of very fancy people staying at very fancy places somewhere very near here, but those people are not taking this train. I am happy to get off the train in Nice, one of the largest cities in France, and hop the tram (oh, how I and my tired feet love a tram) down to the old town and the beach.

I finally get a good view of the waterfront, and it’s everything you think it would be: Azure water and rocky beaches. Tanned bathers and bright sunshine. And on the beach, rows of identical striped umbrellas. The umbrellas are white and ultramarine blue, the colors signifying a private club. You have to pay to be shaded from the sun here.

Wandering along the Promenade, and then the old town of Nice is a shock after the quiet of Grasse and small-town Provence. A soccer match is being simulcast on huge screens near the beach, and people gather around to watch. It is crowded, loud, and hot…and all a little much for me.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is a nice respite from the heat.

Standing in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace by Yves Klein - modeled after the ancient Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre, a sculpture depicting the same goddess Nike from whom Nice gets it name - I think of the ultramarine blue of the umbrellas, and of Henri Matisse, too, whose namesake museum is not far from here. He loved this shade of blue and used it in the famous paper cut-outs that he made at the end of his life, when he could no longer hold a paintbrush. Yves Klein was born in Nice, and Henri Matisse died here.

Klein famously dedicated his life to the color blue - and not just blue, but this shade in particular. He developed a method of suspending ultramarine pigment in resin so that it wasn’t muddied by the linseed oil that is usually used to create oil paints. The color is patented and named International Klein Blue. During his short career - he died of a heart attack in 1962, at the age of 34 - he used the color over and over in many different ways, rarely straying from his monochromatic blue palette. He said, “The blue of the sky in Nice was at the origin of my career as a monochromist.”

I wonder if Yves Klein would recognize the city of his youth today. He was just five years old when F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night was released. I have to admit, it is the French Riviera of Tender is the Night that I would love to go back in time and visit. Before the glitz, and the ritz and the shininess.

I ride the train back to Grasse, and take a photo of the pink station before getting in my car to drive home to Arles. The pink of Grasse suits me more than the blue of Nice, I find.

That night, it is time to take one last stroll around Arles. To say goodbye to the south of France. Goodbye to the Arena and to the people playing petanque in its shadow. Goodbye to pastis and bull’s meat. Goodbye to Roman ruins and mosquitos and lizards and broiling heat. Goodbye to this historic city, and the lovely people who live here.

Goodbye to the charming artist, above whose studio we’ve stayed for a month. And the smiling young farmer at the market, who always takes the time to explain in halting English which vegetables and fruits are best to eat that day and which should wait until tomorrow. And the kind shop owners, who are so patient with my broken French.

(I try not to think about the woman in the shoe shop who tells me that I shouldn’t be looking at the sandals I like because they are not made for women whose feet are so big. My size six-and-a-half feet are still offended.)

I think about all of them, and their kindness, and their hospitality…and silently say merci. Goodbye Provence. Goodbye France - for now. I hope to see you again soon…

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