march-2012

WORDS MELISSA ROSSI, CHRIS BEANLAND | PHOTO © RUDY RICCIOTTI ARCHITERCTURE
The Jean Cocteau
Museum in
Menton on the
Côte d’Azur
4
OF THE
BEST
On the Culture Coast
NICE As France’s most unusual-looking
museum opens in Menton, 30 minutes
from Nice airport, we recommend four
mind-expanding odysseys in the Côte
d’Azur’s town of culture.
JEAN COCTEAU MUSEUM
This stunning new gallery, above,
celebrates the legacy of Menton’s
most famous son: poet, playwright and
designer, Jean Cocteau.
RESTORATION
Until May, this exhibition at the town’s
Beaux-Arts and Préhistoire Régionale
museums explores how art and
objects can be restored and renewed.
CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
Menton is truly an art-lover’s paradise.
The Galerie d’art Contemporain boasts
modern masterworks by such infl uential
artists as Velichovic, Combas and
Trémois in a fi n de siècle palace.
JUST FOR LAUGHS
Don’t be an April fool. Visit historic
Théâtre Menton on 31 March or 1 April
and enjoy mime, jokes and more in a
hysterical comic review. Tickets €14.
tourisme-menton.fr
Bed Clothed
AMSTERDAM Is this the best-dressed
hotel in the world? Described by Elle
as “a fashion sketchbook come to life”,
Amsterdam’s Hotel The Exchange has
had its 61 rooms “dressed” by graduates
of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. In
keeping with the theme, sewing machines
are available for guests who want to have
a go themselves. It looks – ahem – sew
much fun. exchangeamsterdam.com
THE BUZZ | TRAVEL NEWS
Making
Scents
Absolument
Absinthe can be
worn by men
and women
MARSEILLE
“If I lived in the Middle
Ages, they would
burn me at the stake,”
says Pascal Rolland,
a purveyor of spirits who fancies
himself as a bit of an alchemist.
Best known in his Provençal town of
Venelles, about a half-hour drive north
of Marseille, for alcoholic tinctures,
Rolland’s latest pushing-the-envelope
concoction is an absinthe perfume,
Absolument Absinthe, distilled from
wormwood and cannabis.
Like the alchemists of yore, who
concocted potions and tried to turn
lead into gold, Rolland’s activities
sometimes tiptoe to the edge
of legality. In 1999, when he found a
loophole in French law that prohibited
making the absinthe adored by
19th-century artists, he and chemist
Marc Villacèque began distilling
“the green fairy” to their own recipe,
marketing it as Versinthe, a green
liquid that clouds when water is added.
Soon after, he opened Liquoristerie
de Provence (liquoristerie-provence.
fr), a Belle Époque-style parlour
where visitors cloud drinks and sense
by mixing water with liqueurs made
from thyme, verbena or fi gs. Now
they can spritz themselves with the
scent of decadence as well.
TRAVELLER | 35