Grasse is a wonderful mediaeval town, surrounded by a spreading slick of suburbia in the form of apartment blocks & private housing along with commercial developments, that is the centre of a large well reknowned perfume manufacturing industry. Museums & smelly shops sing the praises of this long established industry. Women walk around its narrow stepped streets holding a fan of white emery board shaped samplers to their delicate noses trying to decide which small aromatic treasure to buy.

The heart of Grasse old town is magnificent in the colours of its tall, stretching tenements which line the narrow alleyways. Blocks of rich oranges & orchas & reds & tans stand side by side as if in a merchants sign or a baron’s coat-of-arms. Arrays of shuttered windows hide away secrets of bubbling vats & coppered urns linked over furnaces by pipes and test tubes all furiously working together to create the next fragrance to take the classy class by storm. Alchemy in practice in the 21st century.

It’s a shame that tourism, once again, hides the innocent glory of a once elegant centre where Victorians would have travelled to take the air away from the coast of the Med which can be seen in the far distance from Grasses’s high promenades.