Friday 3rd May Nice and Grasse

Woke up after a night being swayed by the passing traffic. The city is active 24 hours it seems. Walked across the road and spent the morning swimming, and searching for worn glass stones of green and blue hues.

Made our way to Grasse (the world centre of Perfumery) and took a tour of the Galimard Perfumery where we learned a lot about perfume making. Bought some perfume and looked for a place to spend the night.

We had collected a brochure that showed all the local campgrounds from the tourist bureau and headed for a likely looking one. We were a little concerned when we went through an ancient one way tunnel called the ‘Throat of the wolf’ complete with its own stalactites – even the lights were an odd orange colour and were on the side looking as though they should be made of flames rather than electricity. Then we followed the GPS over a very high one way bridge that looked as though it had been there since Roman times. When it finally steered us down a steep incline on a dodgy goat track we gave up – reversed out and asked a friendly French man for help. We weren’t far from our campsite and there was a much easier way to get there. It was set in lovely olive groves below a medieval village and with lovely views. Showers gave us a giggle though – you had to press a button every 14 seconds to keep them going and while Mum was in them the lights went out. They were on a sensor and she was in there for too long. Grubby after three nights free camping. Never again! The night was nearly pierced with manic laughter ...