
France & Beyond: Our Winter Journey Continues
(Editor’s Note: Last month in Part I of this travelogue, my family and I journeyed to the South of France for a late winter vacation. Here is the rest of the story.)
One of the reasons Nice, France, is such an enchanting spot is its close proximity to both the Mediterranean Sea and the French Maritime Alps. Just ninety minutes north of the coast, amazing snow-covered peaks welcome winter sport aficionados. Peter, Ross, and I spent a day on the slopes during our week in the South of France while my brother, Dick, and his wife, Nilla, stayed behind to explore museums in Nice.
After researching ski areas, we chose one called Valberg. I printed out a map, and on a fine February morning, we navigated curvy mountain roads past large chunks of granite, arriving at the picturesque town of Valberg in late morning. A fresh snowstorm had blanketed the region a day or two earlier, and the snow fairly glistened. Peter, Ross, and I hurriedly rented equipment, purchased lift tickets, and soon were riding in a ski lift up the side of a very steep mountain.
A perpetual beginner, I’m always nervous when skiing in a new place, and Valberg was no exception. At the top of the slope, I carefully studied the trail map, making sure we could take a green trail all the way down. Before we skied off, however, Peter, Ross, and I paused and took in the view. Set against an azure blue sky dotted with scudding clouds, white, frosty mountains undulated in every direction. Although we wore only light jackets, it felt pleasant under the warm winter sun.
We hated to leave our perch on the mountaintop and the fairy-tale view, but the snow called out to us, and with a push of our poles, we glided downward, inhaling big gulps of fresh mountain air as we raced to the bottom. The afternoon slid by in a blur. Peter, Ross, and I rode lifts up and skied down over and over again, but too soon, the sun drifted down in the sky, the lifts began to close, and we found ourselves taking the last trip down the mountain.
Unfortunately I hadn’t studied my trail map carefully enough, and the lovely green trail we started down abruptly ended in a red trail. Who planned this? I wondered, as I gingerly made “s” turns down the way-out-too-steep slope toward my husband and son waiting below, falling once, twice, three times in the process. I finally gave up and took off my skis and trudged down on foot, a subdued ending to an otherwise exhilarating day of skiing.
FLOWER OF THE FOREST
I’m not much of a perfume person. In fact, I cringe when I’m near someone who doesn’t know how to use perfume moderately. I do like nice smells, however, so I decided to take a chance and create my own perfume at a two-hour workshop in Grasse, France, with my sister-in-law, Nilla. Peter, Dick, and Ross dropped us off one morning, and Nilla and I entered the cool interior of Les Studios des Fragrances of Parfumerie Galimard.
Patricia Gautrand, the perfume master or “Nose” who would work with Nilla and me, explained that the room temperature was kept low so that our sense of smell worked better. She sat us down at two side-by-side stations where a hundred or so bottles of scents faced us, resembling organ pipes. Although the number of bottles seemed overwhelming, a system exists to ensure that novice “Noses” like Nilla and me don’t combine uncomplimentary fragrances.
Without delay, Patricia placed five or six bottles in front of us and asked us to choose the three we like best. These scents would help build our base notes, the first building block of perfume. I found it hard to choose, but finally settled on three scents. In the meantime, Nilla chose her three. Then, based on these choices, Patricia placed the next selection of scents in front of us. Again we smelled. I ended up with four more scents and then poured all seven carefully into a tall, narrow beaker.
Next we began working on the middle notes. After Patricia smelled our concoctions, she suggested scents for this next level. Again we smelled, only now we held the smelling strip above the beaker so that we could judge how the scents would work together. More smelling, choosing, and selecting scents followed until we finished the heart notes.
Finally we choose our top notes, which are the scents you first smell in a perfume. My choices included green tea, bergamot, and freesia as well as herbal and fruit scents. Since the labels were written in French, it wasn’t easy to decipher the names of the smells, which meant Nilla and I were blindly smelling scents without being influenced by names. Being a verbal person, I found myself guessing at the labels and trying to think my way through the process, which may or may not have helped produce the best result.
Once we mixed in the top notes, our finished product revealed its unique scent to our by-now overworked noses. I liked mine, although Patricia said the fragrances would continue to combine until the final perfume evolved in about ten days. I called my perfume “the Flower of the Forest” or “La Fleur de la Fôret.” Patricia said it smelled like Chanel 19, but I bet she told everyone that. Before leaving, Nilla and I dutifully recorded our formulas on paper so that we could reorder our signature perfumes again one day.
FRUIT FANTASY
Until real estate became too pricey, perfume factories dotted the landscape in the South of France. The mild climate and long growing season made it perfect for growing a variety of perfume ingredients, including flowers, herbs, and fruit. While less land is available for farming now in the region, festivals celebrating the harvest of various crops still occur—even in winter. We’d just missed the Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu-La Napoule near Cannes, which celebrates the brilliant yellow blooms of the mimosa, also called the flower of the winter sun. Happily, our visit did coincide with the Lemon Festival in Menton, a resort town beside the Italian border.
In our rental car on our last day in the South of France, the five of us journeyed east along the coastal road that winds through the rugged mountains hugging the Mediterranean shore. The Lemon Festival, like the Carnival in Nice, is known for its brilliant parades, which feature floats made of lemons and oranges. Since we were flying out the next day, we couldn’t stay for the evening’s parade. However, we did visit a sculpture garden with incredible displays of fruit fantasy. From gondolas gliding in canals in Venice to a New Orleans jazz band in front of an antebellum mansion, the sculptures—created from thousands of lemons and oranges—delighted our senses. Menton is known for a special kind of lemon, so Nilla and I couldn’t leave without buying a bag to take home.
…Only Peter, Ross, and I weren’t going home yet. Vowing to meet again in the South of France as soon as possible, we said goodbye to Dick and Nilla the next morning at the Nice airport and boarded a plane to Paris, where the second week of our winter journey in Europe would continue.
LIVING IN THE MOMENT
When I’m planning a trip anywhere, my computer works overtime. I should have become a travel agent because I love seeking out the best deals, and I find them, too. For our two-night stay in Paris, I spent hours searching through hotels in the city and on the outskirts and finally settled on a Marriott Vacation Club Resort called Village d’ile-de-France near Disneyland Paris.
A time-share resort, the property rents villas to the public as well, and the price in winter is amazingly affordable, considering the quality accommodations. We paid 119 euro per night for a beautifully decorated two-bedroom villa with a full-sized kitchen, living and dining room, 2 ½ baths, and a laundry room. Amenities included a large indoor pool, steam bath, and saunas. In summer an outdoor pool, golf, and planned activities round out the options. While the property is twenty miles east of Paris, the highway system is good, and with the help of the GPS system in our rental car, we had no problem getting around.
We decided to give Disneyland Paris a miss and headed into the “City of Light” on a peaceful Sunday morning. We had exactly one full day to enjoy a taste of Paris, and a cold day it was, bitter cold, in fact. Just days before we’d breakfasted on the terrace of our villa in Vence, and now we were bundling up in hats and scarves and mittens.
With no real itinerary in mind, we found ourselves passing an outdoor market in a suburb south of the Seine, where shoppers bustled past stalls buying fresh vegetables, meat, and bread—though it was near freezing outside. Since I can’t pass by a market without exploring its hidden treasures, we parked and joined the throng of shoppers. Soon I spotted a maroon French beret for about five euro that I just had to have. Peter and Ross picked out some baked goods and clementines, and as we strolled along with our packages, me sporting my French beret, we fancied ourselves natives, belonging here among these elegant Parisians.
Havana Café across the street offered a warm haven, so we left the cold behind and entered this quaint café, pushing aside red velvet curtains, which hung in front of the doors to keep out the cold. The proprietress welcomed us as mellow jazz played in the background. We sat at a simple wooden table with a fine view of the street, ordered a bottle of soda for Ross and a bottle of Cote dû Langeduoc for Peter and me, and spent the next ninety minutes or so lunching and living in the moment.
Ross ordered une frankfurter and pommes frites (hot dog and fries). I had a hearty Havana omelet with potatoes, cheese, and ham, and Peter ordered duck filet with pepper sauce. I remember looking at the people around us in the café—locals, I’m certain because we were way out of the tourist zone—and wondering about them: the mother and son who drank coffee and chatted earnestly, the young couple who read the newspaper without talking, a well-dressed man eating alone. Taking the time to people watch is a rare luxury for me lately, so our café lunch was rewarding in many ways.
Afterwards we visited a couple of tourist attractions: the Arc de Triomphe and Notrê Dame Cathedral, but the cold became too intense, and we decided to return to our elegant villa at the Village d’Ile-de-France for some down time after a busy day.
BIKING IN THE SNOW
The last part of our European journey began with a five-hour drive to the Holland, where we planned to spend time with Peter’s mom and sister. Since neither of them had room to accommodate us, I arranged a stay in De Eemhof, a CenterParcs bungalow park near Amsterdam. These vacation villages are comprised of small, clean cottages equipped with all your basic needs. They also feature amazing amenities for families, such as huge indoor “swim paradises” with slides, wave pools, palm trees, snack bars, and lots of families having fun together. Other amenities often include bowling alleys, playgrounds, discos, petting zoos, boat rentals, and planned activities. These parks are busy year round, and in the winter can be very affordable.
One unique aspect of bungalow parks is they tend to be car free. On check-in and check-out days, you can bring your car to your bungalow, but the rest of the time you park in the lot and walk in. Most people bring bikes since the distances can be a little intimidating. For instance, our bungalow was a fifteen-minute walk from the parking lot. We rented bikes, which made things a little easier, except one day when we forgot about the car-free rule and loaded up at the grocery store with goodies for a special birthday dinner for Peter. Our friends, William and Maria would join us, and since William likes beer, we had to buy a few bottles—plus wine, steaks, bread, vegetables, and assorted other groceries.
When Peter, Ross, and I returned to the park, we realized we needed to transport all of the groceries via bike to our bungalow, a 10-minute ride away. To make matters worse, snow had been falling in earnest for about an hour, and it was getting dark. As my French beret turned white from fat flakes of snow, we loaded up, balancing bags on the handlebars, filling our knapsacks and the baskets on our bikes, and rode gingerly through the snow, praying we wouldn’t fall and break bottles of beer or worse an arm or a leg. We survived the ride, groceries, beer, and dignity intact. I only wish we’d had a camera to commemorate our snowy bike ride.
February in Europe may seem incongruous, but in fact, we loved our winter journey to the Continent. While balmy temps and blue skies are the ideal backdrop for everyone’s dream vacation, winter can have its own special charm. If you keep your mind and your eyes open, surprising adventures await any season of the year in any place you go.
For more information, visit
• www.azurvacation.com
• www.valberg.com
• www.galimard.com
• www.menton.fr
• www.marriottvacationclub.com
• www.centerparcs.nl