May voyage along the Cote d'Azur!
I did not have time to finish the entire review before leaving for Russia, now I am writing the final part. Yes, we must immediately bring everything to the end, otherwise some memories are already being erased from memory.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and Villa Grecque Kerylos
1. Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
On the most beautiful road through Villefranche we went to Cape Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to inspect these 2 villas.
I saw something about the villa Ephrussi de Rothschild on sites on the Internet, where there are a lot of colorful photos, and in fact we liked everything there. The weather did not let us down, and in the morning it was a pretty sunny day. Near the villa there is parking for cars, but not very big. Free parking was not immediately found, and apparently it is viewed by surveillance cameras. We had to wait 7-10 minutes for someone to leave and make room for us. And the places there are different: short - for small cars and longer - for other cars. But whoever sorts out what, where there are free places, they park there. So we got a place for half a car.
Already we are this way and that, nothing happens, part of the car sticks out and that's it. We left it as is and headed towards the entrance. But it wasn’t there, we didn’t have time to reach the entrance, as a guard (or whatever it’s called) was walking towards us. He said that he would not leave the car like that. I stayed where I was, photographing the surroundings, and my husband went to deal with him. We were re-parking for about 15 minutes: he forced someone to drive into our place in a more compact car, and us into a longer one, and given that everything is narrow there, it was not easy and not fast.
And this is still in the off-season, and in the summer there is probably pandemonium in general. I came to the conclusion that it was necessary to arrive there early, before there were so many people, because we were there around 10:00 in the morning, and everything was already taken.
So tickets. After reading the reviews, we bought combined ones, immediately for 2 villas. It was a mistake. Villa Grecque Kerylos we did not like at all.
My oversight, it was necessary to find something about her on the Internet and then decide whether we need to visit her or not. But I didn’t, for some reason I decided that it would be as beautiful there as it is here, as a result of a little lost money and a lot of lost nerves and time.
But first, about an elegant villa with a garden - Ephrussi de Rothschild. A lot has already been written about it, I can only say that we spent several hours there and got a lot of pleasure from everything we saw. Beautiful views on both sides of the sea, lush vegetation, sculptures, fountains, 7 gardens: French, Spanish, rose garden, Florentine, Japanese, exotic and a garden with sculptures...see photos in the album and enjoy.
And so, in high spirits and a rainbow mood, we went to the next villa.
2. Villa Grecque Kerylos
There is a sign in front of the entrance, we turned there, the road is rather narrow, on both sides of it there are very few places for cars, which were already occupied after lunch. And it’s not at all clear who owns these parking lots: local residents near the lying houses or this villa itself? Something told us that there was no need to go there, but here on the road there was no turning around, and we drove to the end. We ended up on some small “patch”, where it would be very difficult for our car to turn around. And then there are only footpaths: to the villa, to the sea, somewhere else down ...It was the most difficult U-turn of the entire trip, literally 30 - 40 cm back and forth, back and forth ...somehow we left from there and began to look for a place for the car somewhere nearby. Not far away there is a free, spacious paid parking lot, and opposite it is a lovely little garden.
The problem with the car is solved, let's go to the villa.
I don’t even know what and how to write about it, the surrounding area is very small, it’s hard to even call it a garden, it literally stands on the shore, surrounded by the sea on three sides.
The coast is unremarkable, ordinary, except for us, there were a few more people there and that's it. The path led somewhere down, went down to the basement, where ancient Greek statues are exhibited, plans of old port cities hang on the walls, I don’t remember what else ...
And the villa itself was built in the classical ancient Greek style, inside there are also statues and paintings all around. There are busts of Homer, Socrates in the niches...We went into the library, and there were antique sculptures, walked through the bedrooms, and then all over the villa. They looked around without delight, this is just the case that is called “noted, ...yes, we were there, and you? ... ”
I have already written above and I will repeat it again, if I had looked and read something on the Internet in advance, then we definitely would not have visited it.
3Eze Village
And then we go to this village. Indeed, a somewhat unusual location at the very top of the cliff, like an eagle's nest, and especially the location of the garden, as well as the village itself, on the ruins of a 12th century fortress.
Through the narrow, medieval streets, where no transport runs, we go up to the exotic garden.
As in any village of this type, there are endless medieval buildings, small boutiques, souvenir stalls, etc. It is worth visiting here, some corners of this village are as old as from a fairy tale. And the views of the sea, the mainland, the peninsula are unique. Entrance to the garden is paid, unfortunately, I don’t remember how much it costs, and there is no price on entrance tickets. The garden mainly grows some cacti of all kinds, varieties and forms. But sometimes you can see other flowers perched right on the rocks.
At the very top, there is a place to sit and rest, and contemplate everything around 360 degrees, and not rush anywhere, just look around and enjoy all the beauty you see. I didn’t want to leave ...But we also wanted to stop by Cap-d`Ail and Fort de la Revè re, but it was already nine o’clock in the evening, and we were a little tired. We decided to postpone these 2 places until better times.
4. And a little more about Nice
On one of the rainy days, we didn’t go anywhere, we decided to dedicate it completely to Nice, namely, we bought tickets for a tourist tram (8.00 euros / person) and went for the sights. Now it’s unambiguously clear that this is not our mode of transport: it jerks all the time, it’s impossible to photograph anything along the way, it partially follows the route of the survey bus, and where it goes through the old city, we already walked around everything on foot, then it drives up the hill Chateau, but you can also get there by elevator, for free. It takes 10 minutes to get there and back.
Here we said goodbye to him, well, what can be seen and photographed in 10 minutes? In general, in our case it was a stupid trip. And we walked up the hill, there are so many viewing platforms, so many secluded corners ...at different levels, amazing views of the city and the coast, even in cloudy and rainy weather.
We still have 2 days left for the Principality of Monaco.
