TRAVELS WITH BOB & IRIS: May 24, 2016

Woke this morning in Villefranche overlooking the Med with lots of yachts moored in the bay. We now think all these luxury $1M+ vessels are rented for the Monaco Grand Prix by corporations courting customers. Must be fun to run with the "rich & famous". But we're pretty happy in our place with these great views. We could get used to this. It's easy to see why folks like to live on or within sight of the ocean. Well we slept till 6:00 AM so had a good night's rest. Breakfast today was bacon and eggs and it was a bit of an adventure as we forgot to bring coffee but we made it using our own egg skillet. However after breakfast we discovered that we forgot to bring soap for the dishwasher. We survived. Leaving our view we drove down into Beaulieu sur Mer and found plenty of parking (paid) in front of the casino (they don't open until late in the day) and after a short walk we arrived at the Villa Karylos built 1902-1908 right on the edge of the Med by a couple that wanted a house that looked like a second century Greek villa. Boy did they succeed. We spent a couple of hours here and really enjoyed it. The family of the original couple lived in the house until the 1950's and then it was declared a "national treasure" so we don't know if they all died off or if the government confiscated it. Anyway they now are keeping it maintained in fantastic order. One of the frequent visitors to the original couple was Gustave Eiffel (of tower fame) who had a villa next door, now a luxury hotel. After our stroll back to the car we drove on the middle corniche only about 5 km to Eze Village. Iris had found a place for lunch, L'Alchimie where we enjoyed a lovely rose, a starter salad prepared with lots of radishes of various colors, lettuce, tomato and burratta cheese (we were not familiar with this Italian cheese that has about the same consistancy as mozzarella but creamier) followed by risotto prepared with fresh peas. Dessert was a shared Ben & Jerry's chocolate brownie ice cream. After lunch a walk UP to the Eze Village and we do mean UP. The church was built in the 1700's and was mostly painted inside to appear to be marble but a lovely place to sit and restore from our trek up the hill. We opted to not continue up to the summit where there was a huge cactus garden (we've seen those in TX). Bob found a wonderful embroidered T shirt to commemorate our visit to Eze. Then a stroll down from the heights where Iris shopped at the perfume factory store for something advertised as "Iris" products (see photo). Took the the hairpin drive back to the apartment to have a late nap.
Cheese, country pate and a red for our dinner tonight followed by some TV (when not looking at the view) and to bed.