Contributor blog post by Access Riviera: Ho ho ho! The festive season has crept up on me once again and I’ve been so busy with my kids picking up every cough or virus found on a school playground, and juggling lots of Christmas events that I didn’t get around to …

Much has been written about Vincent Van Gogh’s life, the famous Dutch painter who led an expressive, tortured life. This statue le voleur de tournesol (the Sunflower Thief) by Gabriel Sterk may just capture the essence of Van Gogh’s work – as you never quite look at sunflowers, irises, olive trees …

A city built on water and an artistic past, Aix-en-Provence inspired Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola in their respective creative crafts. Find out what is there to like about Aix-en-Provence? This Provencal city filled with fountains, shopping, historic streets and fine dining – Click here to read about our favourite …

November marks the start of the black diamond season in Provence (and other parts of France). Proof that good looks are not everything the Tuber Melanosporum or black truffle looks a bit like a lump of coal that sells for 1-2000 Euros/kilogram. Intensely pungent the ‘diamond of the kitchen’ has …

The Alpes-Maritimes department in south-east France, including the world-famous Côte d’Azur, is home to several hundred medieval hill villages, fortified towns and ruined iron age camps and many are close to Nice.  The “villages perchés” vary from little more than a pile of ruins to perfectly renovated sophisticated small towns…Continue …

The climate in Provence is not well-suited to cattle farming, so sheep and goats have roamed the hills and pastures in the region for centuries. As a result, Provencal markets are filled with an endless selection of goat (chèvre) and sheep (brebis) cheeses, and you can always find lamb in …

You can believe there was a lot of competition and jealousy among artists in Aix. In fact, the poster boy for Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cézanne, was spurned by fellow artist and curator of The Museum of Aix from 1892 to 1925, Henri Pointier. Pointier, who never excelled to the degree that …

One of the first blog posts I ever wrote, back in early 2013, was about Le Petit Vigneau in Saint-Paul de Vence. At the time, it was the winemaker himself, Raphael Vigneau, who showed me around his vineyard, hidden on quiet (and rather plush) residential street at the foot of the …

My friend Delphine who runs Crepes Cidre et Co gave me a flyer Frédéric Paul’s walking tours of Aix-en-Provence in June 2014…then the summer got away from me. It was June 2015 before I stumbled across this #LeVisibleEstInvisible and remembered Frédéric’s unique tours of Aix-en-Provence and beyond – Le Visible …

Are you a foodie? A Provence lover? A Francophile? If so, Provence 1970 is a book you might want to add to your reading list. Mary Jane Deeb shares her review of Luke Barr’s, Provence 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste, New York: …