St-Paul de Vence

St-Paul de Vence, clustered tightly on its hilltop

The elegant, narrow streets of the town

Me in those streets

From Moustiers we drove a couple very stressful hours southward — almost to the Mediterranean — to reach the postcard-perfect hilltop town of St-Paul de Vence. This was once a normal medieval village perched on a hill with beautiful views to the sea. But then it was discovered by Pablo Picasso, and endless streams of artists and celebrities have passed through since.

About that drive: For the first half or so we were on mountain roads so ridiculously narrow that it seemed two cars could not possibly get past each other. Yet cars kept coming from the other direction, instilling dread as we would slow down to try to squeeze past them without scraping the car on our left or slipping off the shoulder-less cliff on our right.

But once we got out of the mountains we started to sense the magic of the Mediterranean below. We connected onto the highway that runs along the Côte d’Azur, watching the iconic place names go by: St. Tropez, Grasse, Nice, Cannes. But before settling on the coast itself we turned inland from Nice a few miles for this stop at St-Paul de Vence.

Here we spent three wonderful nights at Toile Blanche, a beautiful boutique hotel just outside town. This place got everything right — amazing contemporary design, beautiful gardens, good food, wonderful service. This was a close to perfect stop.

I was concerned beforehand that the place was a bit removed from town — nearly a half-hour walk. And I knew we would never want to use the car once we were settled in. And yet my concerns failed to account for the fact that the walk into town was also a seriously steep uphill climb. So after two journeys into town and back we found ourselves pretty content to just stay in the beautiful hotel. In fact, I was genuinely sad to leave this little slice of heaven.