In The Pink at Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild

We had some rain in the night, and a visit from our elderly downstairs neighbor in the morning.  He was surprised that there hadn't been any dripping in his bedroom during the night.  Rick showed him how he'd wrapped some plastic bags around a hole in the downspout, and he'd also reconnected it to the gutter.  All was well.  I'm sure this would be the talk of the neighborhood for a day or two.

Rick also did some research on the Internet and found the e-mail of the owner of our apartment.  We didn't feel like the management company had been too concerned about the problem, and thought the owner might be more inclined to fix it.  Rick e-mailed him and got a nice reply from him from England, and a request for a photo of the pipe, if possible.  He promised to have a local repairman take care of it.

The weather was still a little dodgy, but we decided to go over to Cap Ferrat to visit the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild.   Cap Ferrat doesn't have a train station, so we had to depend on the bus to get over there. At least we were now in the habit of checking the schedule, so we weren't wasting as much time waiting for our bus. 

The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild was built in 1905, and might just be the biggest pink house I've ever seen.  The interior was decorated with antiques, many from the 18th century, and some that belonged to the French royal family.  The interior is described as being decorated in a belle époque style. 

Half of the front of the big pink house

Rick standing in front of the other half of the front of the villa

The wall of the curved alcove is upholstered with a tapestry

Little chairs upholstered in silk for the Baroness' two dogs

The house was very beautiful.  The rooms looked comfortable, yet were very elaborately decorated.  There were tapestries everywhere, beautiful carpets and a room just for the collection of china and porcelain.  The view from every window was stunning. 

Outside there were a series of 9 themed gardens.  We walked the length of the estate to see them all.  Since the property is perched on the highest point of Cap Ferrat, there is an amazing 360 degree view from there.

The French garden

Me, with the back of the house in view

The whole expanse of the French garden

Rick with a favorite statue

The rose garden still blooming in October

One wall of the stone garden

The pool in the Spanish garden

The grotto in the Spanish garden

We had lunch on the terrace of the tea room, and left the estate.  A short walk took us down to the beach, the Plage Passable.  Our view was across the bay toward Villefranche, and the cruise ship in the bay was much closer from here. 

Looking across the water to Villefranche and the cruiseship in port

Across the street from the bus stop in Villefranche we had seen a business that looked like a medical clinic, and I made an assumption based on the sign.  This  time we happened to see someone coming out the door with what looked like a bag of groceries.  I looked the word "surgelés" up in my menu translator and it means frozen food!  (Plus, I finally realized the poster in the window showed a box of macarons - the fancy French cookies.)  We thought we'd better check it out.

Medical clinic?  No, frozen foods!

All frozen foods in the Surgelés store

The inside was very stark and clinical, but no medical facility, this!  Every manner of fancy prepared cuisine could be found here, as well as the norm in our frozen food cases at home - meats, fish, potato products, waffles, etc.  We bought some lamb shanks and duck breast.

We stopped on the way home at the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.  Well, maybe not the candlestick maker.  I guess it was the épicerie - the little neighborhood grocery store.

We had a simple chicken dinner and went for a walk around the village.  The cafés were buzzing.  We stopped to have a drink at one.  We'd miss this at home!  There aren't any cafés for miles around our place on Camano Island!