Cannes, Grasse, St. Tropez, St. Raphael

  Nice, Provence, France
Sunday, May 18, 2008

Sunday was a very busy day of driving all along the coast as well as up into the mountain. Our first stop was to have brunch at the annual Morgan Creek brunch up at Le Moulin de Mougin. It was an awesome brunch - our first great meal - and it actually was not so bad seeing the coworkers in Cannes. :) Everyone was in good spirits. Maybe it was all the free flowing champagne.

Grasse

Next on the trip was a visit to Grasse, home of many parfumeries (aka, places that make perfume, duh!). We bought some cool soap. The town is very beautiful, with amazing views of the area. We then made our way back down the mountain, towards St. Raphael.

St. Raphael

Cathedral at St. Raphael

Each day we do a high/low of our day, and it was unanimous that St. Raphael is definitely the most beautiful town along the Cote D'Azur. There is a beautiful cathedral, among other beautiful buildings. Great coastline, friendy (beautiful) people, etc. It was a pleasant surprise when we arrived there, especially since we hadn't heard much about it (vs. Cannes, St. Tropez, etc.).

Crappy Espresso in St. Tropez

After St. Raphael, we went to St. Tropez. I really had to pee, and was in a foul mood because we ended up in a weird part of town where there were creepy carnival rides and unfriendly French people. We randomly went to a restaurant to use their restroom, and ordered three espressos to wake ourselves up from all the driving. They were not cool at all to us, so we left rather quickly.
After some walking, we made it to the main area of St. Tropez - and it really does live up to its reputation. Tons of high-end boutiques, and yachts on end. It won a couple of points, but apart from the 'glamour', it is definitely not as beautiful as St. Raphael.

Baller yachts

We then took the LONG drive along the coast back to Cannes to have a late dinner with Kaisa. She was lucky enough to go to the Indiana Jones premiere (damn!), but she made time in her busy work schedule to have dinner with us. It was very scary driving along the dark coast, with all the narrow roads, but Lisa is an expert driver and has been doing really well despite these scary situations. Hung out with Kaisa in her swanky apartment, sharing a bottle of wine, then had dinner at a Lebansese restaurant, then had drinks at the Martinez (where we saw Rodrigo Santoro - Neens, I know you're jealous). Made our way back to our hotel in Nice at a respectable 2 am hour. Not bad for one day, right?

Next up, more of Nice, Monaco, and chillin' on our hotel terrace....