And so to the pink villa and gardens of Ephrussi de Rothschild at St Jean Cap Ferrat. It was built as a delightful holiday house by the Baroness of that name, with both the villa and gardens being created in the period from 1907 to 1912.

Personally, were I the Baroness, I would have cut the Ephrussi name out because it seems it was all her vision and money. The husband Ephrussi was somewhat less than satisfactory and she divorced him in 1904, before she even started work on this project. This was, the audio tour told us, not before he ‘infected her with a disease that rendered her infertile’. I would guess syphilis, based on my memories of the movie ‘Out of Africa’ starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. It seems that she then directed her energies to this property.

I have seen a fair number of grand and historic European gardens, particularly in Italy but also in Spain, a few in France and a certain amount in that style in the UK. When it comes to the European ones, the appeal usually lies in the generous and considered proportions of the garden, the stonework, hard landscaping and history rather than the current maintenance and presentation, and certainly not in plant interest.

Ephrussi de Rothschild has the proportions and grandeur and a brilliant location on a promontory of land surrounded by the Mediterranean. But more than that, it also has the plant interest and immaculate maintenance to present the whole place at the peak of perfection. It is a series of interconnected themed gardens executed with style and skill. The main view from the villa is one of formal ponds and parterres before pathways lead off to the themed areas.

According to the map, there are nine of these themed areas including Jardin Exotique (plenty of cacti and succulents), Jardin Japonais (Japanese) as well Florentine, French, Spanish. None of it felt naff or contrived – each garden transitioned gently to the next, marked as much by the change in plant material as the changes in landscape style. It is really very good and have I mentioned how beautifully maintained it is?

But what is it with rose gardens? I can not recall ever seeing a rose garden that made me stop in awe. As far as I am concerned, the rose garden at Ephrussi was the only really disappointing section. I know what it is and that is that people grow roses for the flowers; plant form and foliage are commonly irrelevant at best, or stark, woody and full of diseased foliage at worst.  Added to that, roses are often given a garden all to themselves (for ease of spraying and maintenance, I guess) and a garden full of just roses is no more impressive to me than a garden solely devoted to camellias or hydrangeas or any other single group of flowering shrubs would be.

That said, the stretch of white roses beside the driveway would be one of the showiest displays of perfect roses I have seen, even while I know it is almost certainly the result of an extensive spray programme. I can’t name many roses. This type of white rose always looks like Iceberg to me.

Roses were the source of the second greatest disappointment of this garden tour (the biggest disappointment was finding myself testing positive for Covid on the last day). Day 2 was billed as attending the International Rose Festival in Grasse. While I can’t get excited about roses generally, I thought a morning looking at rose displays and seeing recent directions in breeding would be interesting, maybe even glorious.

I was wrong. The International Rose Festival turned out to be little more than a local rose market in the town square. Perhaps the good burghers and tourist department staff looked enviously at nearby Menton’s famous lemon festival and thought that if they laid claim to roses, somehow it would all magically become a major event if they gave it a name? And maybe one retailer crossed the border from Italy once (not far away at all) so they decided they could market it as international? And the London-based company that organised the tour fell for the hype without taking note of the reality.

The old town of Grasse is attractive and the many pink umbrellas give a charming and festive air.

There seemed to be a lot of nougat sellers in Grasse. Not just the home of perfume then, great wodges of nougat too. I was more impressed by the nougat loaves than the roses.

There are three splendid Rubens in the Grasse Cathedral, although they are not hung in conservation conditions and some deterioration is visible.   

But overall, the only disappointing day was that given over to Grasse which didn’t warrant more than an hour’s visit in passing.  It was just as well  the days spent visiting interesting gardens did not disappoint.