Awaken your senses

Seeing as we were in the perfume region of France, and probably the world, we had to visit some perfume factories. Thus we made our way to two of the most well-known fragrance houses in France, Molinard and Fragonard.

Traditional methods of drying flower petals

Both run factory tours on a daily basis and as most of the visitors tend to be French, we were rather the odd couple there. The tours were fairly interesting however since we have already been to the L’Occitane factory tour, some of the content were rather similar. For one of the fragrance houses (can’t remember which one), they actually didn’t have a resident ‘Nose’ instead they reply on freelancers. When they want to create a new fragrance, they use something like a tender/ bidding process so they can select the best fragrance out there. There is only one school, ISIPCA, in the world for budding perfumers to attend, as past perfumers usually enter the trade through apprenticeships. Of course the most exciting or fun part about the tour was when we get to go to the retail shop and smell all the lovely perfumes!!! The array of perfumes, body lotions etc were a bit overwhelming and since I had already gone crazy at L’Occitane, I thought it was best to practice some restraint and only bought some face creams.

Where the nose gets to work 

After a fairly educational morning, we visited the Villa & Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild as I had read that the gardens were simply beautiful and it was a must-see.

Jardin Ephrussi de Rothschild

The exterior of the villa was painted pink which sounds hideous but is actually not too bad in real-life. The interiors were also beautifully decorated, and while the villa looked small from the outside, there were enough rooms to keep you occupied. It was quite modern for its time, with attached bathrooms and bathtubs for each room and also a telephone. There were even 2 stuffed animals in her bedroom! However, we were here for the gardens and that’s what we did.

Inside the Villa

There are a total of 8 different themed gardens, French, Spanish, Florentine Stone, Japanese, Exotic, Provencal and Rose, and it was wonderful to walk through them.  The flowers were in bloom and it felt like we were walking through a very lovely bottle of perfume. The view of the coastline was also gorgeous and we could spy other mansions from where we were. All in all, a really wonderful way to end our day and also our time in Nice!

In the Gardens