Saturday, March 17, 2007

St. Patrick's Day, birthday and perched villages...

Today was not only St. Patrick's day, but also my birthday... We started off the day by a short drive near Nice, to visit two famous nearby perched villages, Peille and Peillon.






Peillon, which means "little Peille" in Provencal, is I would say the prettier of the two. Actually, maybe if I were to rank pretty villages on the Riviera this would probably come out on top. It's very pretty, very dramatically located on a cliff, and it's surprisingly untouristy (we couldn't even find a restaurant in the village itself)! Especially considering it's only a few kilometres from Nice. A very pleasant surprise.



Peille was very similar, but bigger and more lively. And whilst Peille is pretty, I would have to say it is less so than Peillon. Peille has an interesting history which dates back to the 12th century. It was a pretty powerful town in it's time, and it was actually the Lascaris family who resided Peille that sold the rock on which Monaco was built to the founders of the city, the Grimaldis (bet they're pissed off about that now ;-).

In the evening we had a small "birthday reception" in Ma Nolan's and obviously also dedicated a few pints of Guinness to the patron saint of the Irish...

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