Grasse, Cannes and somewhere called Villeneuve-Loubet

Where to start? With the internship wrapped up, Alex and I prepared all Saturday and Sunday to leave Paris for the next month of adventures! We spent our last Saturday night in town painting by the Seine, a date activity that quickly became a habit of ours while in Paris. And then Sunday we relaxed at the Luxembourg Gardens, watching the tennis players and holding hands on those cute little green benches.

We dropped off our extra luggage at a luggage holder in Paris, then caught our first flight saying goodbye to Paris and landing in Nice! 

Grasse

Once in Nice, we hopped a bus and rode through the beautiful mountains to Grasse. Grasse is a small city in the South of France known for their perfume industry, so…Heaven. Getting to the Airbnb was tricky, we had a long walk with our suitcases and groceries and when we got to the Airbnb the host was apparently confused about our check-in time and told us to come back in 5 hours. Being the overwhelmed, exhausted and hungry woman I was, big tears ensued… thankfully, in the end he allowed us to check-in when we had originally planned which was a huge blessing. 

Our Airbnb was beautiful!! We chose it specifically because of the beautiful pool it had that overlooked the Grasse scenery. It was surrounded by so many different fruit and flowering trees. It was stunning! The only downside were the mosquitos: my arch enemy. My body throws itself into full-defense allergy mode with every bite. They swell really big most times. So, each night Alex and I spent the last 10 minutes before bed with my phone flashlight held to the ceiling and walls, making sure no mosquitoes were in the apartment. Super romantic. 

Gallimard Perfume 

My favorite moment of the entire trip. I’m obsessed with perfume, and this time I got to mix two of my favorite obsessions together. Figs and perfume. I DIED. Sara, my mother-in-law, was so thoughtful in gifting me this experience last Christmas and I’d been anxiously awaiting the experience!! It’s the main reason we chose to come to Grasse, where the headquarters of Gallimard is, so that Alex and I could create our perfumes together! It was such the experience. I loved every moment.

Fête de la musique 

We spent every day swimming in the pool, jumping in and enjoying the sounds of cicadas. Our last night in Grasse was the Fête de La Musique!! This is a huge celebration in France. All types of musicians flood the streets and play, sing, dance to music all night long!

We spent every day swimming in the pool, jumping in and enjoying the sounds of cicadas. Our last night in Grasse was the Fête de La Musique!! This is a huge celebration in France. All types of musicians flood the streets and play, sing, dance to music all night long! We went into the city center unsure of what it would be like, and wow were we amazed!!

Local bands and artists from the city had stages setup all over the streets with lights and speakers, the whole shabang. We danced and sang and enjoyed the music, meandering our way through all the booths, grabbing bubble gum icecream and crèpes. I never knew how big of a sweet tooth Alex had until being here in Europe! Lately it’s been the candy stands that get him, haha! So that night we got a bag of a bunch of different gummies, it was fun!

Cannes

Oh Cannes. Cannes started out rough. Getting there from Grasse was tricky and once we got to our Airbnb we noticed some ants had infested the apartment. We made some lunch and the ants swarmed all over the floor, making their way into the living room, some on the bed, and we even found them crawling on our legs multiple times. A massively stressful and lame 24 hours ensued which resulted in us canceling the reservation, and being refunded.

We tried to go to the beach in Cannes that day but didn’t realize that a massive conference for Spotify, Twitter, Pinterest, Canva… all sorts of big wigs in the entertainment industry… was happening, so they closed all the beach access to the public. We hopped a train the next day and ditched Cannes altogether. 

Anywho, not worth reliving, but we moved to Villeneuve-Loubet: the most random, tiny, suburban town that had amazing beach access! We were absolute beach bums for the next two days. Literally… I’m writing this now in March 2023, and I got such a bad sunburn on my bum swimsuit line, that turned into a tan, and THE TAN LINE’S STILL THERE!!! Haha!

Villeneuve-loubet

All checked into our new place, we lived it up at the beach! The beaches are rocky but the water was so warm!! It was so warm that jellyfish were swimming along the shore and we had to wait for them to go by before jumping into the water. The next morning I woke up to not one, nor two, but FOURTEEN mosquito bites. 4 on my left elbow, 2 on one leg, one on the other, 2 on my face, one on my back, one on my armpit, and 3 on my other arm. Yes, I remember exactly where they were. 

We found the culprit, one very bloody mosquito. And Alex killed it like the hero he is. “It flies, it dies” has become my new motto. Since then my paranoia had been at an all time high. 

That day was spent basically from sun up to sun down on the beach. We enjoyed some ahi bowls at a little shop near the beachwalk, and soaked in the sun. Our next stop was catching a plane and heading to Italy!! Venice, Italy… the place where we fell in love with Italy.