Renoir and Biot

I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but can I take you back to Antibes?

Our second day there we journeyed a little further afield to the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer, followed by an afternoon in the town of Biot (pronounced Bee-ot). Both are only about a 20 min drive to the north of Antibes.

Farmhouse in the grounds at the Musée Renoir

The Musée was Renoir's home from 1907 until his death in 1919. He lived there with his wife and three sons, and various other artist friends who passed through. You can see works (paintings and sculptures) from Renoir and his mates, as well as his preserved studio.

The back's a bit boring.

Much nicer from the front.

There was some film footage on a television in one of the rooms, showing Renoir in his 70s, painting. He was wheelchair bound with severe arthritis by then, his hand completely bent over, finger-tips to wrist. But he still went on working. I loved that he would ask his house maids to strip off and model for him, perhaps this explains his work ethic.

The house is set in a lovely old olive grove with trees that are who knows how many hundreds of years old. The kids loved it and could run around playing while the mister and I took turns at going through the house.

Out the front of the maison is a formal orange grove, complete with sculpture.

In a few places around the grounds they've set up Renoir's paintings overlooking the views he used to create them. I thought this was a brilliant idea - it felt pretty special to be standing on the same earth, looking at same vista that the old fella himself had painted.

After a lovely morning we headed to nearby Biot, which is well known for its glass (there is a factory you can tour there, we didn't get around to it).

First things first: lunch. Then a bit of a wander. We found a nice playground up in the old part of town and I skulked off to take some pictures.

Cool mosaic map in the old town.

Cobblestones galore

A lovely splash of colour here

And there

Street art

You can see why we never made it to the glass tour. This is the wrong phase of my life to be buying glass anyway.

Back to the present, I have been doing some hand sewing. This is for a friend:

And today I am doing a little stitching for myself (toddler permitting):

Hope you're all having a great week.