A friend from my MBA course invited me to join her on a day trip to Eze and since I’ve never been there, I happily accepted!

Eze is actually pretty accessible from Nice. There is a bus stop near Garibaldi station where you can board bus 82 to Eze village; this bus is run by Lignes d’Azur, so the regular subway ticket can be used (it also means that I only spent one euro to get to Eze!). The bus ride takes about half an hour and there are some beautiful views to be found on the bus.

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Fragonard Perfume Factory

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Once we were there, we headed to Fragonard for a free tour of their perfume factory! I’m not someone who wears perfume regularly, but I found this tour to be extremely fascinating.

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We learnt about how the essential oils were distilled, we were given the chance to test our noses (by matching scents to the flowers), and we got to see some of the products being made. Some fun facts that I learnt include:

• There are only about a thousand perfumers (also known as “noses”) in the world! Of these thousand or so experts, fifty are considered the masters of their field.
• To become a perfumer, one must study chemistry for three years, and then go to perfume school for an additional seven years!
• The centre of France’s perfume industry is in Grasse – sidenote: I want to visit Grasse now!
• Fragonard bottles its perfumes, or at least the perfumes of this store, in aluminium bottles. According to our tour guide, perfume can last for one year in a glass bottle but in an aluminium bottle, where it’s protected from heat and light, it can last seven years.

The tour ended at the perfume boutique, where I succumbed to temptation and bought a small bottle of perfume and a small hard perfume. After all, they were having a 50% off sale for one of the perfumes that I really liked!

Eze Medieval Village

After a quick lunch in the sun, we headed to Eze’s medieval village, which is arguably the main attraction of Eze. It’s a small village that looks completely different from the houses outside!

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The village seems to consist mainly of shops (by artists or souvenir shops), restaurants, and a hotel. We didn’t really do any shopping or eat there, but it was fun just wandering around and marvelling at how beautiful the place was. There weren’t that many people, but the paths can be pretty narrow so at certain points, it can feel a little crowded.

At the top of the village, there’s an Exotic Garden. While we saw a ticket machine at some point in the village, we just moved past it because we didn’t know what it was for and so we didn’t actually go in. The exotic garden is located at the highest point of Eze’s medieval village, though, so you may want to get tickets.

Nietzsche’s Path

When we were done exploring Eze’s medieval village, we decided to head to the beach via Nietzsche’s Path. Apparently, this path inspired the German philosopher as he was writing Thus spoke Zarathoustra, which is why there are plaques about Nietzsche here and there along the path.

Nietzsche is a philosopher associated with nihilism, aka the “everything is meaningless” school of thought, and I can see why. At certain points of this trail (my autocorrect would like to change “trial” to “trial” and it is not completely wrong), I was like “I completely understand. Why am I even hiking? What is the point?”. But at other points of the trail, I would see a gorgeous view of the ocean and the hike started to feel worthwhile.

Sadly, there was no abyss on this trail at which I could quote one of the few Nietzche lines I know: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.“

As someone who generally does not like hiking (see: my experience with suicide cliff), I found this to be a challenging but manageable trail. There are a lot of steps, in fact, the trail is mostly steps, and that’s about it. I did slip once or twice, probably because I wore the wrong shoes, but I managed to catch myself before I fell.

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It took us about 50 minutes to make our way down the trail at a leisurely pace. I probably saw more people going up than people overtaking us on the way down, but given how steep it can get, I would personally prefer to hike down rather than up. Plus I heard that it takes around 1 hour and 30 minutes to hike up and I’m not sure if I have the stamina for that.

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We wanted to finish the day at the beach, but it was getting a little overcast so we left after about half an hour or so. We took the train back to Nice – it only takes 10 minutes, but since it’s not part of the Lignes d’Azur, you will have to buy train tickets (2.30 euros for one ticket). The ticket machine at the station was down, but there’s free wifi at the tourist office so you can buy the tickets online if need be.