09 October 2008

Eze Village - the Flower Pot


Take a walk through the village - turn a corner, on a bit, perhaps take a left. Look up, look down - and you'll find little wonders. For instance, this pot outside an old gate.

15 comments:

Laurie Allee said...

I love that pot! This walk is turning out to be full of treasures...

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Jilly,
Great photos from Eze. Thank you.

Here is the rest of the story regarding the search for the champagne glasses used at the Chateau d' Chevre d' Or, featured in your photos during the last few days.

I realize that this will be rather long, but since you and Nathalie expressed an interest in the story, that is all the encouragement I need to share it.

My wife, mother-in-law and I were strolling through Eze and we happened to walk by the Chateau d' Chevre d' Or, not knowing anything about it. My wife commented that this looked like a really nice place and suggested that we have lunch there. We walked in and were met by a host who inquired whether we had reservations and acted like we needed to have had reservations. My wife gave me one of those "let-me-handle-this" looks, and she talked her way in and we were seated at a table with a view of miles of Riviera coastline. During the lunch, we were served with the glowing angel champagne glasses that I described in my comment to your post two days ago.

After we bought 8 of the glasses but received one of them broken, I refused to pay the Chateau d' Chevre d' Or an extra 89 Euros to replace the broken glass, as I mentioned in my earlier post, so I had to go about replacing the broken glass. The box had the name of the crystal manufacturer, but I could not not find any website for them.

So, when we went to France for New Year's later that same year, we gave ourselves the mission to replace the broken champagne glass. We drove into France from Bavaria and stopped first at Rheims late in the afternoon on our way to Paris to visit the cathedral (where we were amused by the sign below on the stained glass windows by Chagall that identified Chagall as a Russian born FRENCH artist.)

Upon leaving the cathedral, we noticed a row of champagne shops across the street, so we stopped in. We described the angel glasses to the owner of the first shop and asked if he was familiar with them. He said that he never had the glasses to sell, but he did receive about six of them as a promotional gift from a supplier and he gave them to friends.

I then went to the shop next door, and found a special New Year's gift box of a bottle of champagne that was packed with two of the angel champagne glasses -- the same glasses that we had! I asked the shopkeeper about the glasses and he said that they never had the glasses for sale separately and that the first and only time they had the glasses was in the New Year's gift box, with a bottle of Angel de Deaux Champagne, which I understand translates as "the love of angels."

The gift box with the Champagne and two angel glasses was 146 Euros. I asked what the price was for a bottle of the champagne by itself, and he said it was 80 Euros. (And we had paid 89 Euros for each of 8 glasses at the Chateau d' Chevre d' Or in Eze). I bought the box, and we now had the equivalent of a free bottle of very expensive champagne and two glasses at a cheaper price than we had paid at the Chateau in Eze. The store had only one box left for us to buy.

We then decided that we wanted more than the 7 original glasses plus 2 additional ones. When we were in Paris, we read in the guidebook that there is a street where all the crystal companies have showrooms. There is even a crystal museum there.

We visited a crystal showroom and named the manufacturer and described the glasses to the dealer. He carried crystal from that company, but not the angel glasses. He looked up the wholesale catalog of the manufacturer and there was a cherub glass but not an angel glass in the catalog. He called the manufacturer and they told him that the angel glasses were special promotional items and that they did not manufacture them for resale. We then resigned ourselves to the situation that we would likely have the odd number of 9 champagne glasses.

On the last day of our week in Paris, we were walking around the Paris Opera House. I noticed the Galleries Lafayatte store nearby and we stopped in and checked out their wine department. They had two of the New Year's gift boxes of Amour de Deaux champagne with two angel glasses in each box. We bought them.

We flew home to the USA with three bottles of champagne in our suitcase and six angel glasses in our carry-on bag. Upon our return, we had a party for friends to enjoy the champagne and glasses.

So, whenever we have friends over and serve champagne, we use the angel glasses and people marvel at the glow of the light in the angel's wings and head, with the subtle hue of the color of the champagne through which some of the light is filtered.

And, in hindsight, I am grateful that the Chateau d' Chevre d' Or in Eze refused to replace the broken glass. If they had simply sent me a new glass, we would have only had 8. Because they left us with a broken glass to replace, we had our adventures in Rheims and Paris and we ended up with 13 glasses, a much better number. I don't have to worry if somone breaks a glass, as we will still have a set of 12, and 12 is a much better number for entertaining family and friends than 8. And, we now have a story to tell about the quest for the angel champagne glasses.

Jilly said...

David - what a fabulous story and with a great ending. I intend looking in the gift shop next time I'm in Eze, just to see if they still sell them. Just curious.

But I have a question... why was your mother in law on your honeymoon?! Of course you don't have to answer this if it's personal. it's intriguing tho.

Ann (MobayDP) said...

It's these little details that make such a difference! :)

Ann (MobayDP) said...

That is an interesting story David. Thanks so much for sharing it!

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Jilly, you have opened up another story by asking about why my mother-in-law was on our honeymoon. The best reason is that I have enjoyed being able to tease her and my wife about it ever since!

Here is the story. My mother-in-law is a retired school teacher who raised my wife largely as a single mother. She is comfortable, but does not have a lot of money for international travel. When we planned our honeymoon, we had a lot of Marriott points to use, so we used them for our airfare and two weeks of hotel stays. We stayed a week at the Marriott on the Champs Elysees in Paris and then a night in Geneva on our way to a week at the Marriott at Cap d'Ail on the Riviera. We added a night in Lyon on our way to 5 nights at a chateau in the Loire valley, so it was a 3 week trip.

We decided that as an expression of appreciation for all that my mother-in-law had done for us, including taking care of our house and pets while we travel, we had her join us for the last couple of days in Paris and for the visit to the Riviera. So, that gave us time without her at the beginning and end of the honeymoon.

It turns out that a client had a crisis just as we were leaving and my wife and I both worked 100 hours each during the three weeks of our honeymoon. The amount of work that we did is reflected by the fact that our phone bill for the honeymoon was $5,000 and my wife was not calling home to her mother because her mother was with us.

It is a bad sign if your secretary is working overtime in the evening in your office and you are working on matters with her via long distance and you are 7 hours ahead of her. That is not exactly what most people would think of if someone said that he was up all night during his honeymoon.

It is also a problem if you are receiving so many faxes that the chateau in the Loire Valley ran out of ink and printer cartriges at 3:00 in the morning and there is no where to buy ink for a fax machine in Amboise at 3:00 a.m.

Nevertheless, we had a great time on the honeymoon. We did not realize that the Marriott at Cap d'Ail was so close to Monaco. The website said that it was 10 minutes to Monaco and we assumed that was by car, but the border of Monaco was the steet right beside the hotel. We had a delightful time.

We als did not realize when we booked the trip that we wold be there at the time of the Historic Grand Prix leading up to the regular Grand Prix. We also did not realize that it was the same time as the Cannes Film Festival up the coast. There were lots of activities and celebrities around.

It was during this trip that I observed my mother-in-law ignoring major sights such as the Eiffel Tower because she would be distracted by wanting to pay attention to any dog in the vicinity. She would take pictures of the dogs instead of taking photos of France. Her pictures, taken from a distance with a point-and-shoot camera were so lousy that I started taking dog pictures for her.

Thus started a practice of taking photos of dogs around the world for my mother-in-law. The object is to take at a photo that shows the dog in its surroundings that are quintessentially representative of a foreign location and a second photo that is a close up of the dog. My mother-in-law now has three photo albums on her coffee table of photos I have taken of dogs around the world.

My mother-in-law is a regular visitor to your Riviera Dogs photo site and a devoted fan of all three of your sites.

By the way, the photos that I have planned to post on my Costa Rica Daily Photo site next Monday, Oct. 13 are a series of 4 photos of a dog on the beach.

Jilly said...

David,thankyou for that. It sounds to me as if you are the perfect son-in-law. I won't comment on everything you've written but suffice to say it sounded a hectic but fabulous honeymoon. I remember now you told me your mother in law keeps an eye on Riviera Dogs. thanks for that. And yes, isn't the Historic Grand Prix fabulous. For me, so much more interesting - and less noisy! - than the main one.

Sharon said...

Now I have to weigh in on those angel glasses. I've been priviledged enough to have great champagne in those very glasses at Julie & Dave's house. They are very beautiful, and when I think of the story behind them, they have a new charm. By the way, that Angel de Deaux Champagne was delicious and it had the added treat of having the little cap on top of the cork turn into a little necklace when you removed it from the cork! Since I collect those champagne bottle caps, Julie and & Dave gave me the one from this bottle.

Tanya Breese said...

I want this flower pot, although it looks perfect sitting where it is. Love the details on it though :)

Virginia said...

My question is when do we get to see those fine angel champagne flutes??? I am dying to see them.

Jilly, This is so simple yet there is so much to see! The moss, teh crumbling concrete, the vines, the bottom of hte door that is rotting away and of course the lovely pot. WEll done!

Halcyon said...

Love that pot. I bet you can't find anything like it nowadays.

Anonymous said...

wow the story of the angel glasses is amazing! what a treat to hear. personally pottery and crystal is always a delight to hear about. Lots of us don't know there was so many crystal places in france! So, the visit there will be exciting!

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

To the folks above who expressed curiosity about the champagne glasses:

I will tomorrow post on my Tamarindo, Costa Rica Daily Photo site several photos that I just took of the champagne glasses described in my story above. They do not really fit the theme of Costa Rica, so I will post the photos below the regular photo that I will post, so you will have to scroll down past the Costa Rica photo to see the champagne glasses. I hope that after seeing the photos, you will understand why we went in search of the glasses.

Rob said...

Lovely scene! This is such a charming photo, in a timeless place.

Hilda said...

Sigh, another enchanting photo!

Thank you so much for this wonderful tour in this beautiful village, Jilly. I am really enjoying it!

Related Posts with Thumbnails