Goings on in Grasse

We got a bit lost and turned about trying to navigate Grasse and find the Perfume museum. Eventually we parked in a Garage and walked to the office du tourisme to get our bearings. We visited the perfume museum which had displays on scent, perfume production and the history of perfume. There were lots of lovely bottles and perfume paraphernalia as well as a charming little orange garden. Once we had fully explored the museum we made our way across the street to an exhibition on the women in perfume put on by the perfume producer Fragonard. They had a wonderful display of women's clothing and jewellery from the 18th and 19th century, charmingly displayed. From there we took a short wander around Grasse but were not very impressed. We returned tot he car and tried to make our way to the Fragonard factory just outside the city but were soon caught up in traffic once again. We finally found the factory despite a number of contradictory and misleading signs. We took a quick tour then hoped back in the car hoping to drive along the coast back to Nice. However, it was getting dark and we could not get to the coast road and ended up taking a few wrong exits and so it was a long and frustrating trip back to Nice. Back at the hotel we rested a bit before heading out to see the opening ceremony of the Nice carnival. We got a preview of some of the carnival floats and a watched a brief fireworks display before getting dinner and back to the hotel to recover from our first day.