St Remy de Provence for lunch in the square. Under the shade of a spreading Plane tree, market salad.

Van Gogh and Gaugin at the Cathedrale des Images at Les Baux. From the dark, slightly moist air, the soft stirrings of music are heard. Then suddenly the limestone walls of the ancient underground quarry are illuminated, bathed first in the light of images of metamorphoses…volcanoes, rain, sea, plants sprouting and growing; images which would have inspired these two artists and which are so often represented in the ir works. Then their works, projected onto the quarry walls, accompanied by great feats of musical wonder. Colour, sound, transforming, hypnotising.

Menerbes, Peter Mayle country.

Ménerbes became famous in the English-speaking world when in 1990, British author, Peter Mayle, regaled his readers with the highs and lows of a British expat who settled in the village of Menerbes.  One of his books was made into a film, A Good Year,  (2006) directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe when he wasn’t “fighting ’round the world”…  The area was, of course, already famous for a far more previous inhabitant, the Marquis de Sade who lived in Lacoste, which you can see from Menerbes.

Open air salt water pool in the port. Older women with dark brown, wrinkled leather tans. Topless. Deck chairs around the pool. Monaco high-rises, limestone cliffs, preparation for the Monaco Super Yacht show, luxury super yachts, marquees, sponsors, trucks delivering chairs, pot plants, wine.

Hot.

Some lengths. The salt slightly stinging the inside of my nose. Some sun. More lengths. Sandwich jambon fromage. Sparkling water.

Train back around the coast.

Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, the daughter of the banker and major art collector, Baron Alphonse de Rothschild. Charming and very flamboyant, Beatrice married Maurice Ephrussi, a man fifteen years her senior who had a penchant for gambling and also for women and his gift to his young wife was an illness which prevented her form having children and an enormous amount of debt. The Rothschild family stepped in and took errant husband, Maurice to court to demand a separation and finally, after 21 years of marriage, Beatrice and Maurice separated.

The following year, Beatrice’s father died and left her incredibly wealthy. She bought the house which is today the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Beaulieu, just along the coast from Nice, and set about collecting…animals, tea sets, art, plants. When she died, Beatrice left her house and collections (although not the animals) to the Academie des Beaux Arts.

Landing at 2.30 in the afternoon, a big smile on my face, ready for the frenchiness to unfold. Limestone backdrops, sweeping coastline, heat haze, a city which from above seems to pile up on itself, vapour trails against a blue sky, the antique market in Cours Saleya, Vieux Nice, rosé de Bandol on the terrasse.

Nice.

I think I may well have been French in a past life. Something opens inside me when I’m in France, walking down the narrow streets, seeing the labels in French on cuts of meat in the butcher’s hearing French, speaking French. The little seed opens and blossoms.