Typical souvenirs from Provence

Dans le guide que j'ai écrit et qui se trouve dans mes gîtes (http://rivieraapt-accommodations.blogspot.com/), vous trouverez les meilleures adresses pour acquérir ces souvenirs.

The most typical souvenirs from Provence are:

• SANTONS: clay figurines which represent all the traditional crafts of Provence and are clothed in traditional XIXth century outfits. We put them in the nativity scene for Christmas.
• Tissus FABRIC: with cheerful traditional design. You can buy a table cloth or a skirt for 28 euro, you can also find bread bearer. Check the quality, the difference of price is often justified.
• POTTERY: you can find them in several places. Better to buy them in a workshop. Moustiers, Biot and Vallauris are the most renown places for it. Vallauris has a pottery museum with a ‘peace and war’ fresco by Picasso. Biot makes yellow enamel pottery marbled with green and brown. Moustiers is famous for its white, yellow and blue faience.
• Livres  BOOKS: always a good present and easy to fit in the luggage. FNAC in Nice’s Etoile shopping Centre (rue Jean Medecin) offers the best choice at best prices.
• Parfum PERFUME: either essential oils that you find in one of the factories which are listed in the workshop chapter or famous brand perfumes that you can find either at the Sephora shop in Nice or at the airport (duty free).
• Maisons MINIATURE CERAMIC HOUSES: quite a nice present but rather expensive. Gault is the original maker, you can find cheaper copies but the quality is definitely lower and they are worthless for collectors.
• Savon SOAP: natural traditional soaps which came with all kinds of shapes and flavours.
• Fruits Confits GLAZED FRUITS and FLOWERS: this is a tasty, colourful, easy to pack and not too expensive gift. The Florian workshop in Pont du Loup is the best spot to see how it is done and buy some.
• Huile OLIVE OIL: to be bought in one of the mills, you can also find other nice products in these mills.
• CONDIMENTS: an original and typical gift especially for friends of yours who like cooking. You can bring back either special local culinary preparations such as tappenade, aioli, anchoiade, … or olive oil or sachets of fragrant herbs, lavender, … or sweets (lavender honey, gingerbread, fruit or flower jams, calissons, crystallised fruits or flowers …).
• NOUGAT: another Provence sweet with honey and almonds
• VIN WINE: we are in France, the ww leading wine producer! The Provence traditional wine is Rosé. As for aperitif, the typical drink is Pastis (an anis-flavoured alcohol, similar to the Greek ouzo).
• Cadrans solaires SUNDIAL 
• Fer Forgé Wrought iron: a blacksmith near the cathedral in the old Vence city will make any piece that you will draw including gate, furniture … and ship it to your home.

In my guide book which is my rentals (http://rivieraapt-accommodations.blogspot.com/), you will find best addresses for all these souvenirs as well as a few more very original gift suggestions such as swords, cushions in the shape of your favourite animal, carved squashes… You will also find several pages on shopping, flea markets, size conversion table,… and ‘vide greniers’ organized by each village (a different one each weekend); a ‘vide grenier’ is a village wide ‘garage sale’; for great deals either get there very early in the morning before the professionals take the best pieces or very late when people pack and dump the prices in order not to bring back their stuff home.

There are also many craft markets all year round. I’ll let you know the ones not to be missed.

When you buy something which costs more than 300 euro, don’t forget to claim a Duty-Free form from the seller, in order to get tax refund at the airport on your flight back.