Southern France 2018

Hi guys!

I’m so lucky that my boyfriend’s parents have a house in Fayence, which is west of Nice. This year we, as in all six of us, spent two weeks down there and I thought I’d share with you some of the things we did!

♡ Seillans

This is a cute little village with several local artists who sell their work, beautiful buildings, and pretty flowers. We had lunch at a rather good restaurant and I had a lamb that made your mouth water just by looking at it. The restaurant is named Glorie de mon Père and it is child-friendly with waiters who speak good English. According to seeprovence.com this little village is known as ‘one of the most beautiful villages in France’. The city itself is from medieval ages and it has narrow streets and an old church that it’s worth poking your head into. We mostly walked around at random and enjoyed that marvelous lunch. My boyfriend’s parents had been there before so they knew the way around. I found the cutest little ‘borrow-a-book’ case in one of the streets! All the books were in French though so I couldn’t borrow one…

♡ Mons

If you ever want a view then you can take the trip to Mons. Rumor also had it that the bakery, Boulangerie de Mons, was amazing (I can assure you with 110% that it was! That bread was just to die for!). When you drive up there is a lot of forest surrounding the road and then all of a sudden you emerge and Mons is right there. The city itself is on a plateau and this makes for amazing views! The French nature is not very similar to the Norwegian one, so it is very nice to just sit and watch. It is not a big town, but it is very exposed to weather since its so high up and therefore the roofs of the houses are full of stones to keep the roofs in place. It is a very strange sight since stones don’t really belong on a roof, but what can you do? Nature is nature. This village also has a lot of narrow streets, pretty stone buildings, and some small shops. It is nice to just wander around to look at everything. In this city, someone had used an old (really old) buggy for children and put books in it. It was such an amazing use of an antique!

♡ Pont des Tuves, la Siagne

This beautiful little place is found at the bottom of a valley. You drive up to the village of Montauroux, through it and then there is a walking area with soft underlay and here you find the path that takes you down to this little river. The water was so clear and cool! I really enjoy swimming in cool water so I jumped in right away. The temperature was close to Norwegian water which was amazing! You can jump from the bridge, my boyfriend dived from it, daredevil that he is. I swear that one day that man will give me a heart attack….I didn’t jump from the bridge, but from a rock, a bit further down. This is for sure top ten most beautiful places I’ve had a swim! The whole area was rather picturesque as you can see below. Highly recommended if you want a good hike and a good swim!

♡ Fun Karting Grasse

One day we went, or I should say everyone but me and my boyfriend’s mother, went go-karting. I’m not a huge fan so taking pictures of the drivers and reading a book sounded good to me. It was from what I understood a good track and they enjoyed themselves. They provide you with helmets, you can choose between different cars (it had to do with how fast they were going) and you get a timesheet printout when you are done. They all drove for 15 minutes and they drove on the big track. There is one long track and one shorter one. Families on TripAdvisor say that it is quite child-friendly.

♡ Gourdon

On the same day, after karting, we went to Gourdon. My boyfriend’s mother had read that this was one of the ‘must see’ villages in France and it was really worth a trip! This village is also built on a plateau and has beautiful views! Different from Mons though was that you could see the sea a bit clearer since it is closer. There was quite a lot of tourists there, which is understandable. There were some really cute shops! The most impressive one was a crystal shop on the main street. Everything within the shop was made of crystal and the artist was really talented! The most amazing piece was Cinderella in her carriage when she is going to the ball, again, all in crystal! The shop was named Verrerie d’Art de Gourdon. If you visit this village you have to go there! Another thing, that I did not know when we visited, is that parts of Les Misérables from 2012 is filmed here. Apparently, the scenes where Jean Valjean escapes from his forced labor unit is filmed up there.

♡ Les Gorges du Verdon & Moustiers-Sainte-Marie

This village was a bit of a drive away. On our way there we drove over and around the French version of The Grand Canyon named Les Gorges du Verdon. This gorge was massive! 2-300m deep and all natural. We stopped several places along the gorge and saw some spectacular views! Nature is really amazing!

Sainte-Marie is a little village on the mountainside. It looks, not out of place, but weirdly placed. The mountain is directly above it, so you don’t want to be present if any rocks fall down to put it that way. Not that there seems to be any danger of that happening. We parked down below and walked up because it can be hard to get parking in the city. Through the village flows a beautiful little river with small waterfalls and the water is so clear! We also hiked up to the church up in the mountain. You can walk around or take the original way with worn down stone steps. It fascinates me how people built these buildings back in the days without the technology we have today. The hike up also gave beautiful views over the valley down below. After visiting the village we went for a swim in the lake nearby. It was very needed because it was so hot that day!