PROVENCAL STONE COTTAGE, GARDEN AND SHARED POOL IN MOUGINS NEAR NICE & CANNES

Mulberry Cottage is perfectly situated on a hillside in Mougins overlooking Mougins village. Lynn collects us on arrival and after a short twenty minute drive we are 'home'. The cottage is separate to the main house and therefore private, the pool has its own entrance for guests but is shared. It is very spacious, clean and adequately equipped. There is also a lovely area in front of the cottage to sit and enjoy the sunshine and use of a barbeque.

I feel a car is essential in this area but there are also buses. It is very cheap and easy to catch in Mougins once you know what number you are looking for. My sister and I use the bus to go to Grasse and Nice for the day. In Nice there is a large train station next door to the bus terminal so it is possible to travel further a field. Grasse has the wonderful Fraganard Museum. We are regular visitors to Mulberry cottage and are beginning to be more familiar with the area. We love Theoule; it is in a nature reserve and tends to be quieter on the beach as opposed to Nice. It is warm enough to swim and my husband and brother in-law enjoy diving there with goggles and flippers . Two new things we did this trip was to drive to Gordon, a magnificent village perched on the edge of a mountain. The other was to drive to St Maxims on the coast, park the car and take a ferry to St Tropez. This was the highlight of the holiday for me. It was marvellous just dawdling along and looking how the rest of the world live, beautiful boats, shops and people. It also has a charming square with benches to have a rest and watch the world go by or you can play a game of boules. The Friday market in Valbonne is also a firm favourite and has everything, food and clothes galore in a quaint square surrounded by places to eat.

We tend to mainly cook at the cottage on our visits and Carrefour is an excellent local supermarket. There is a restaurant in Mougins and I can not remember what it is called. The locals go there and it is only open at lunchtime I think. There is a fixed two course menu available and the service is good and the food excellent. Lynn is a fountain of knowledge about the area and you only need to ask her if you want to find out or need anything.

Though we speak virtually no French, we manage and usually find there is some one available who speaks English. We adore our holidays in the lovely Mulberry cottage.

We booked the cottage for 3 weeks from the end of July to mid August 2011. Normally we stay in 5 star hotels (I know, we are up ourselves) but we decided that after 15 years of the Carlton in Cannes we would go rustic. Unfortunately we chose to drive through France on the weekend of the start of the French summer holidays so what should have been a pleasurable drive turned into groundhog day, traffic delays, and several changes of route. Lynn must have been seriously fed up with me constantly changing the arrival time and eventually it was midnight when we arrived. Lynn heard us arrive even at that time and came to meet and greet us, complete with a much needed and appreciated bottle of wine! Our first sight of the cottage, albeit in the dark, was looking good. In the morning with wall to wall sunshine, it looked fabulous. At that point we wanted to sell our family house in dismal Yorkshire and move to the cottage, sans famille. The cottage had everything we could need for the stay, ok the bbq needed a tweak, but thats now ok. You could cook a Desperate Dan size cow on it no problem! The cottage is very private and whilst we wouldn't recommend nude sunbathing, you certainly have absolute privacy within the cottage and in the courtyard itself. The pool is quite large and with a good sun bathing area, ideal for a sun bunnies like us, with clean sunbeds daily. The pool is shared with Lynn and Peter and their family but to be honest we hardly saw them and pretty much had the pool to ourselves. Lynn and Peter are fantastic people, we ate with them twice and they are so helpful. Our lunches were often held at the local bistro a ten minute walk away, 2 courses and wine 12 Euros. Food quality superb and this is from a gourmet foodie. Its a steep walk to Mougins, but well worth it . Mougins restaurants are excellent if expensive and you certainly want a beer after the steep climb. The view from the firsty balcony of the first bar in the village is incredible. I'd like to say we came back fitter than when we went, but if I did it wouldnt be true, we ate and drank too much. Its a short drive to Valbonne, a superb village and again with excellent restaurants, a jazz restaurant and quirky shops. After 3 weeks we didnt want to leave. We had a fantastic holiday, we loved Mulberry Cottage, Lynn and Peter are two of the nicest people I have ever met and given a choice of the Carlton or Mulberry, well the Carlton is great but give me Mulberry any day.

We spent two weeks at the cottage in July and can honestly say it was a very enjoyable stay. We were made so welcome by Lynn and her husband Peter, nothing was too much trouble. It was a working holiday for us but when we were able to stop work, relaxing by the beautiful pool was the perfect switch off. The cottage is scrupulously clean, tastefully furnished, comfortable and with ample space for a family of four. The glorious old village of Mougins is a five minute drive, Cannes is just 15 minutes away and although you feel you are away from it all, it's great knowing everything is within very easy reach. Our dogs also had a whale of a time with the owner's dogs, walking along the canal path nearby. It's the perfect spot for a restful break.