Grasse stands in the hills behind Cannes and has, for three hundred years, been the perfume capital of the world. It began as a town of tanners; when scented gloves came into fashion the tanners turned to scent, the mild climate gave them the flowers, and the trade has never left. The whole craft of perfumery, UNESCO now agrees, is kept alive here.
I. The town that smells of flowers
The old town climbs in steep stepped lanes of warm stone, and three of the great houses — Fragonard, Galimard and Molinard — open their doors to show how it is done, from the flowers to the still. The Musée International de la Parfumerie tells the longer story; everywhere the air carries something.
“A town of tanners that learned to bottle the spring.”
II. The flowers and the fields
The scents begin in the fields around the town — the rose de mai picked in May, the jasmine in late summer at dawn before the heat, the tuberose and orange blossom that go into the great perfumes. A handful of growers still supply the famous houses by name; the jasmine of Grasse remains one of the most precious raw materials in perfumery.
III. Fragonard’s town
Grasse also gave France a painter — Jean-Honoré Fragonard, born here in 1732, whose light touch is shown in the museum that keeps his name. Between the perfume houses and the galleries, the town makes an easy day from the coast, and a cooler one: it sits high enough to escape the August heat of Cannes below.
