Saint Paul de Vence - France no. 2

We visited the beautiful Medieval town of St. Paul de Vence, one of the jewels of France, so exquisitely well preserved.  It's situated up high on a hill which dominates the valley with breathtaking views of the mountains and the villages below.  Again we we were surprised at how green and lush everything was.  Parking is a bit of a problem as it is in all these types of locale which are strictly pedestrian.  The parking was situated below ground, quite a few levels, with hairpin turns since there's really not much room to build and space is at a premium.  The parking was almost full, again very surprising, this being early May I didn't think there would already be so many travelers in France.  Many of the tourists were French and Italian.  At the exit of the parking you wind your way through the predictable boutiques selling herbs of Provence and various soaps from the region+ lavender.  Ever since I've been made aware that these so-called herbs of Provence are often grown and shipped from Romania I've been reluctant to plunk down some euros never sure of the actual provenance.  It's sad but everything is made elsewhere now even France isn't immune to that virus.  I think I would rather go into the hills and pick the herbs myself, they're quite plentiful there.
The village itself is made up of narrow streets with huge cobblestones, some streets are not only narrow but steep, only one person can get through with another following behind.  There are a lot of beautiful art galleries  some well known artists who spent time here were Paul Cezanne and Marc Chagall who actually died in Saint Paul, we visited his rather modest tomb in the local cemetery.  Various visitors have started placing rocks on the tomb, one rock per visitor, a little sign of acknowledgement and respect for the great artistic visionary Chagall was.  We meandered among the many side streets, lovely little plazas await in unexpected places, went up on the palisades and took what I hope will be decent pictures.  I'm not a great photographer by any stretch of the imagination.  The air was redolent with lovely flower smells like you find in the South of France.  It's easy to see why many would want to retire here, I certainly wouldn't mind if money were not a consideration. We shared an Italian ice cream, returned to the car and wound our way back to our hotel, Les Bastides de Provence but first made a little pit stop to grab something to eat.  We weren't very hungry and starting to feel quite tired and jet lagged at this point.  We needed some rest.  We were driving to La Grande Motte (near Montpellier) the next day.  Driving can sometimes be a stressful and difficult experience in another country.  As it turns out it wasn't too bad except for the "Postes de peage"  where you have to pay but that's a whole other blog.  Enjoy this one.