St. Paul de Vence

At the end of April, Nick, Sarah and I took a two day trip down to the Riviera to visit two little hill towns in the area. Our first stop was the well known village of St. Paul de Vence. Even before we left for France, friends at home had told us we must visit this place. So, eight months after our arrival we finally made got there.



St. Paul is one of those special "pedestrian villages" so you park your car just outside the town and enter and explore on foot. There is something really wonderful about touring this type of town without the distraction or presence of motor vehicles. It's not only a lot quieter but much easier to imagine life there centuries ago. With that in mind, here's a brief pictorial visit of St. Paul de Vence.

As a walled city, you enter through these archways and walk up the narrow, sometimes steep, roadways like this...

Nick loves old, beauriful doorways and he really liked this wide, wooden garage door...

We loed how this shop fit their sign into the top of this ancient doorway...

More street scenes...

we loved these signs...

After wandering our way up through the narrow cobbled streets...

...we arrived at the top of the town and were rewarded with these magnificent views...looking south we could even see the Med!

We bought some sandwiches and sat down on one of many benches to have our lunch...

We had a perfect view of the city wall...

After lunch, we observed this woman delivering a very proper cafe to someone... and wished it was us!

When we walked back down to the car, we stopped to watch a game of Petanque, one of France's most popular pastimes, after which was just getting underway...

Now we are off to visit our friends, Michele and Pierre, in the nearby hill town of Mougins.