Valbonne

Bonjour Everyone!
Today we especially enjoyed another beautiful breakfast on the sunny terrace of Le Mas Samarcande B&B which is located in the hills above the town of Vallauris. It's not everyday you can look out from your breakfast table and see the snow capped French Alps in the distance. So after savouring the view, as well as the lush greenery all around, we went to our room, packed up, and said 'au revoir' to Pierre and Mireille, the lovely, kind hosts of Le Mas Samarcande.
We decided to drive into the town of Vallauris, and have a little look around, as we had spent very little time there. So first things first, we found a cafe called Cafe Le Temps to enjoy cappuccinos, and plan out the day. We sat for a while talking on occasion, then pausing and getting lost in our own thoughts. When we left the cafe, we still hadn't made any serious plans, besides the fact that we needed to arrive in the village of Valbonne by 4:00 pm. We were pleasantly surprised at how interesting Vallauris actually was. As we walked the Avenue Georges Clemenceau, we discovered there were numerous galleries and interesting little shops with lots of pottery in brilliant colors from the Provençal area.
We stopped in at the Eglise Sainte Anne cathedral for a look around inside. A few steps away from the cathedral was a square called 'Place de la Liberation, Aout 24, 1944'. In the center of the square was a magnificent sculpture of an angel holding a fallen soldier. The dates of 1914-1918 were inscribed into the rock underneath the angel. You can only pause with the greatest of reverence at such a representation of such tragic events in history.
We walked on and past a window which had large pictures of Pablo Picasso posted. Pablo appeared to be getting a hair cut, only it would have had to have been before 1973, since that's the year he died in Mougins, France. He actually lived in this area for 8 years where he did a a large amount of pottery work at a Madoura Pottery. There is also a Musee of Pablo Picasso in Vallauris, but then again, it seems like there are a lot of Picasso museums around.
When we got tired of walking around in stifling heat, we decided it was time to leave and head to Valbonne (which actually means The Good Valley), where Ron had found an apartment to rent for 3 nights. He chose it because it looked very quaint on-line and also because it was situated right off of Place Des Arcades, the main square of the town. We drove into Valbonne, found a parking place after circling around several times. Parking was quite a distance from the square. We walked through town to see if the apartment might be available a little early. We came to the right address, and there was a pleasant lady sitting at a small table across from the apartment. She was very helpful in giving us some tips about the apartment. We typed the code in outside the door, and came into a small room with winding stairs. The key to the apartment was in a drawer by the stairs. We went up and opened the door, and were so pleasantly surprised by what we saw. The apartment was accurately represented on-line, and we weren't disappointed. The walls were all white. The furniture was white. There were large, colorful prints on the walls. If you walked across the room, you could push open the shutters and look down onto the town square called Place Des Arcades. There was a round glass-top kitchen table with four wrought iron chairs. On the other side of the room, you could step down two stairs, and find yourself in the lovely little bedroom. Everything was very clean, and we felt happy to have our own "little home" for a few days.
We found the apartment quite cool and restful, and neither of us felt much like walking around in the hot sun, and felt even less like driving anywhere to sight-see. So we went across the square to a small store, filled with fresh fruits and vegetables and picked up a few things to take back to the apartment. We decided to 'chill' for awhile.
For dinner this evening, we walked across the square to an outdoor restaurant called Auberge Provençal. I had Niçoise salad, pronounced 'Niswaz'. This is a mixed salad of tomatoes and green beans and is topped with seared tuna and anchovies. It is usually on a bed of lettuce and hard-boiled eggs and nicoise olives are usual accompaniments. Ron had bouillabaisse soup. For dessert, we shared a rich lemon tart.
I should say that while we ate dinner, we commented on how different life is here. There were many people starting to trickle in to find a table. We noticed several couples, but also lots of families. Children were running around and darting here and there. There were even a few dogs, the biggest cat I've ever seen, and birds flitting overhead. Of course a scooter would weave between the restaurants on the square every now and then. We noticed that people don't seem to consider these things as interruptions. They don't view a child crashing around as an imposition. They just take it all in stride. This is the way it is here, and it's like a life lesson for us.
After dinner we walked the short distance across the square and up to our first floor apartment. We opened the shutters and looked across the square where we had dined just moments ago. Church bells just rang eleven dongs. The people below are quite loud, and you can hear gales of laughter burst out every now and then. Now the crowd seems to be dispersing a bit from the tables and the staff are wearily beginning to clear tables and dismantle umbrellas to prepare for the large market which is to be set up in the morning. We were told that we may have trouble getting out our door tomorrow and onto the square. Apparently the same guy sets up his table every week in the same place, and somehow forgets he might be blocking a door...