After two weeks in Morocco, haggling and bartering our way through the labyrinth of the medina, we decided to rest our weary minds and baboosh-ed feet and take a week in the Côte d’Azure…visiting with some friends in Cannes before moving on to a five-week assignment in Singapore with LucasFilm Animation. The short list: a couple lunches and dinners in Monte Carlo, a couple lunches and dinners in Cannes, and in between feedings, cross the Boulevard de la Croisette and take some sun in the sand. That’s pretty much it. Oh, take the train to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to see the Villa and Gardens Ephrussi de Rothschild…the gardens are superb.

An afternoon at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and Baroness Beatrice Ephrussi née Rothschild or as we came to call her “B.B.”
B.B. purchased and started building her shack in 1905. She had 11 architects working on the villa. She wanted full-sized mockups on most of the features on the house. Train cars of art and antiques would pull into the train station and she would go shopping. The house and gardens were all designed in pink, her favorite color.  When she received guests she would dress up like Marie Antoinette (whose whist table she had bought…because if you are going to have a whist table, it should have royal lineage). But what I love the most, she had 34 gardeners on the compound and each their little berets had large pom poms on the top.

Now if you have an imagination, it’s not to difficult to close your eyes and envision this tiny, entitled woman dressed up as Marie Antoinette (with wig properly askew), stomping through her house screeching, “B.B. wants pom poms!”.

What luxuries money will bring.

Cannes, continued…

The end of May started our summer with a trip to Morocco, logistically Fez, for the Festival de Fès des musiques sacrées du monde (Annual World Sacred Music Festival). Which, if I described, I would say “sensorially saturating”. The atmosphere, the smells, food, the patina on such an ancient city, and of coarse the sounds. Close your eyes as you listen to Byzantine choir under a blossoming tree in a 9th century courtyard. Lean back on the overlaid carpets on the ground and watch the blossoms fall in the afternoon light. And hear the Muslim call to prayer as it rains over the city, whispering over the walls and windowsills, harmoniously weaving through the Byzantine chant. May we return to experience it again. In šāʾ Allāh.

Marrakech, Morocco

The second week we took a driver and traveled to Marrakech, along the sweltering merchant trail. We drove down the coast, past Rabat, Mohammedia, and Dar-el-Beida, until we arrived in Marrakech. Bustling, hot, and insanely populated, especially when you combine the first two elements. Where you definitely use the word “SAH-fee” (stop, enough) when walking through the Djemaa el-Fna. But there are sanctuaries in this chaos, respites to relax such as Jardin Majorelle (the famed garden of Yves Saint Laurent), La Maison Arabe, a phenomenal re-designed riad converted to a boutique hotel, or the v. expensive Amanjena Hotel where you can have a wonderful lunch, empty your bank account, then put a pillow on your head. (see attached photo)