Grasse is a nice little town up in the hills, about an hour and a half from Nice by bus. The drive there is very scenic, passing through lots of little villages including Roquefort-les-Pins and Villeneuve-Loubet Village (very different to the sea-side resort!). Without a proper map of Grasse, we kind of guessed where to go, and followed road signs pointing in the general direction of the Froggonard Perfumerie.
Grasse is famous for its perfume within France, and is often called the world capital of perfume. Due to its fantastic flower-growing climate, it produces over two-thirds of France’s natural aromas. There are several well known perfumeries there, such as Galimard and the longest running on, Fragonard. Each has a factory tour offered, which is where we were headed!
We took a guided tour in English around the factory, where we were shown the various techniques they use to extract perfume, the ways the scents are created and where the final perfume is bottled. They also showed us how they make their soaps, and we tested our ‘nose’ abilities by identifying different scents – I’m not very good at that! In the shop, we tried on several perfumes but were rather put off by the prices! We couldn’t stay too long anyway, as the heavily perfumed air was giving Joan a headache, and making Thomas feel like he’d entered a small version of hell!
We wandered round the old town, very similar to all other old towns, with cobbled streets, narrow walkways, small unique shops, fountains…Very pretty, full of the kind of character that I like. We stumbled across a wedding ceremony in a church, and waited for the bride to leave to watch the air get filled with confetti. The view from the church was lovely – we were so deep in the hills that you couldn’t really see the sea, just lots and lots of little villages nestled among the hills, just like Grasse is. Very pretty!
