Perched villages in the hills

It's been a fairly quiet week until today.  Mark and Amber were dispatched onto the TGV at Aix-en-Provence on the Tuesday, and then we spent the rest of the week dodging the rain, working outside when it was fine, sulking inside when it wasn't.  The weather in Europe is really up the creek.  England has been snowed in for 2 weeks and is only just achieving temperatures in double figures.  In the meantime, we are definitely getting warmer days, but more rain.

The French have certainly mastered the art of parking.  We're not sure if the parking is too expensive or the more likely reason why they park all over the place is that they didn't design the station with enough parking spaces.  At the Aix TGV station (in the background above) the cars are parked on the motorway exit and entry ramps and an all the footpaths or they simply abandon their car wherever there's a sniff of a gap.  The saying is "when in Rome do as the Romans do" so when we arrived to meet Amber and Mark at the station we parked right outside the main station exit doors, on the footpath and over the no parking markings.  No-one blinked or moaned or even noticed.  C'est normale. 

So, with a fine day forecast today, we set off for the "perched villages" of the Alpes Maritimes region.  That translates as hilltop villages up behind Cannes and Grasse.  These villages provided safety and refuge against the Saracens, pirates and other invaders following the fall of the Roman Empire, so most of them have buildings from around the 10th Century.  A lot of the the villages fell into decline during the 19th and 20th Centuries, as they couldn't participate in the Industrial Revolution, as they were too far away from the bigger cities to be of any use to anyone.  In the 1960's the French government realised there could be some money to be made out of tourism, and started funding the renovation and rebuilding of the villages.  Consequently they are very pretty and well kept examples of French village life.  And so ends your history lesson for the day.

We started off in Fayence: having left the house at 8.15am, breakfast felt like a long time ago, so by 10.30am Lew had the "Top Three" lined up.  On the left, we have the almond croissant, centre stage is the plain croissant, and coming in on the right is the pain au raisin.

All were stunning examples of their kind - why are the best patisseries always miles away from us at Le Thoronet?!?  Anyway, suitably stuffed, we waddled around the village, and watched the gliders being towed up from the airstrip below, and gently released to glide around overhead.

Looking down over the rooftops, we were intrigued to see lots of rocks on the roof tiles of some houses.  They were usually only on one side of the roof, and we decided it was the medieval way of stopping the tiles being blown off the roof in a storm!

You see all sorts of things when you're looking down on the rooftops - can you spot the leopard lazing around in the courtyard in the following photo?!  Clue: he's being watched by a squirrel! Answers on a postcard, the winner gets a weekend's free accomodation in Le Thoronet, a great little village in Provence (flights not included).

Fayence has a lovely chateau, which has been converted into apartments for private accomodation.  What a fantastic place to live.

From Fayence, along a few more windy roads to Caillan.  I was doing the driving, and needed a few rally driving tips from Lew, as apparently my cornering wasn't up to scratch.  Luckily, advice was received without the need to complete the divorce papers.

Caillan looked equally attractive on the approach...

However, there was a pottery market in full swing and it was absolute bedlam.  Gendarmes all over the place directing people into miniscule parking places with lots of arm waving and cheek puffing...we made a split second decision to drive straight through and out the other side!  Caillan will have to wait.

Next stop was Montauroux.  Much calmer, so we had a wander around the streets, admiring the knockers, as you do.....

We also added to our collection of signs - hope this isn't becoming a bit repetitive, but really, this one was irresistible.  If you don't get the message after reading this sign, you don't deserve to own a dog, because it really spells it out for you...no excuse if you're illiterate, its all there in pictures!

Needless to say, Montauroux was spotless!

Final stage in our "Tour de Villages" was Cabris, which really did have stunning views, right down to Cannes, off to Nice, and even out to Corsica, but not today as it was all a bit hazy.  We had lunch sitting on a rock overlooking it all.

We've noticed in all the villages and towns we've been to, that every one has a war memorial, listing those villagers who lost their lives in the 1st World War.  Many of them also have the 2nd World War casualties listed too.  The memorials are very different, but they are always there somewhere around the main square.  A bit of useless information: France lost nearly 4.3% of their population in WW1 including 1.4 Million soldiers.  The only countries to lose a greater percentage of their population were Serbia (16.1) and Romania (9.3%).  By comparison NZ lost 1.6% and the UK 2.2%.  The French rural sector and community suffered quite badly after losing so many young men for years to follow.  The memorials nearby to Le Thoronet have very long lists of names, many of which are the same and presumably all related to each other.  Not too dissimilar to NZ.   The French got a lot smarter after that and lost a lot fewer men in WW2 than many other countries.  Vive la Résistance!! 

Fayence

Montauroux

After all my careful rally driving in the morning, Lew decided to take the easy route home and we jumped on the peage (toll motorway) and got home in just over an hour!

Tomorrow looks like a big day ahead.  A huge poplar tree is going to be felled in the garden, so its all hands on deck to chop it up, burn the branches, stack the logs and generally tidy up afterwards.  We've now got seven sheep in the garden, as well as the five chickens and one cat, so we'd better make sure the livestock don't get squashed in the process!!