I don’t like to dwell on the weather, but winding down the driveway to Le Mas Candille, the car dips out of the mizzle for a moment – that really annoying sort of rain that doesn’t look much, but gives you an absolute drenching. I’m greeted by a glowing-with-olive-tan Francoise, looking a little sheepish under her umbrella having soaked in the sun here for all of last week.
Nevertheless, the four and a half acres of manicured gardens, all lavender, honeysuckle and callistemon, shine through, glugging the weather faster than it can fall. Le Mas Candille (Mas for the farmhouse at its centre, Candille for its landmark cypress tree) is just a few kilometres from Cannes, and slips into the medieval hillside of Mougins like Cinderella’s foot in her slipper – and sits pretty behind Nice and Monaco, her bigger bolshy sisters.
Le Mas is less diamonds and glamour, more understated luxury with a sparkle catching on the breeze from the coast. This is where olive trees have stood for 200 years, and a peach plastered 18th century farmhouse with heavy cream shutters bakes in the southern French sunshine – when the weather behaves, so Francoise Mirebeau, the delightful Responsable Commerciale, assures me – breathing out its warmth like a radiator through long evenings, coaxed by a chorus of crickets.
But Le Mas is not without its fair celeb share – Kirsten Dunst rested her head here, between scooping the best actress award and schmoozing on the red carpet at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Brad Pitt’s been known to drop in for dinner.
Little wonder, since under Serges Gouloumès – un petit ‘chef celebre’ himself – restaurant Le Candille has held a Michelin star since 2005. The food is exquisite; all rounds of asparagus mousse, morel mushrooms, giant langoustine and suckling veal, expertly crafted and perfectly complimentary, with that juicy buttery-ness that is the preserve of the French.
And then there’s the cheese cart; the star of the proverbial show, right as the sun goes down over the pre-Alps, and Serge bumbling around happily, charming guests with a cunning grin and an accent thick enough to slather on a fresh baguette.
Sleeping soundly in vast beds, sinking into rooms that have a hint of the classic Relais & Chateaux, and each with an individual farmhouse charm, the sun peeks through. Inspired by the heady scents of the garden, we venture to Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, to play at making our own fragrances in the original Fragonard factory – with debatable success, it must be said, but an excellent education in scent for a Wednesday morning
But finding your nose is tough work and though Grasse can’t help but smell divine, the soporific effect of its winding streets means that the cocoon of Le Mas’ Shisheido Spa, and a network of Jacuzzis and infinity pools and hammocks and day beds and my deep bath are too hard to resist.
I could go on, but by now you should be sipping Champagne on the terrace, refreshed and barefooted and without a care in the world – Picasso may have lived in Mougins, but with Cypress trees and terracotta roof tiles playing at complementary colours and the big clouds rolling off the Ligurian Sea, the panoramas unfolding are straight from Cézanne’s brush.
So there you have it; a haven, I suppose, where the light is special, the smells almost tangible and the feeling fine – and the kind of place that just when you’re satiated, the petits fours appear and it all starts over again.
