FIG. 181. NOTRE DAME DE VIE AND MOUGINS.
views thence obtained in all directions, especially towards Grasse, and by the picturesque vistas which meet the eye at every turn in the ancient narrow streets. One of the original gateways of the town ([Fig. 182]) is still preserved, with its machicolated parapet and the grooves for the portcullis behind its plain pointed arch. It is supposed that Mougins is the Mons Ægitna to which the native tribes retired, and where they fortified themselves after being driven from Cannes (or Ægitna) by the Romans. In returning to Cannes, the route may be delightfully varied by a walk over the hills, past Notre Dame de Vie, and along the footpath beside the aqueduct, which brings the water supply from the sources of the Siagne (some twenty miles off by road, but double the distance measured round the windings of the canal) to Cannes and Antibes.
Castellaras, about a couple of miles north from Mougins, is another splendid point of view. An ancient castle here occupies the summit of a hill, and is partly surrounded with its old wall of enceinte, but the most of the buildings connected with it are modern.
FIG. 182. MOUGINS, GATE TO TOWN.
The most important place, however, lying a few miles inland from Cannes, is Grasse, an ancient town of some celebrity, and still a place of considerable business and movement. It lies about ten miles north from Cannes, and may be approached by several roads or by railway. One road goes to the westward, by the plain of Laval and the valley of the Siagne, passing through the little town of Pégomas, and within a short distance of Auribeau ([Fig. 183]), an ancient city perched on the crest of a lofty hill. From this point the road steadily ascends, till, after a long climb, Grasse, which stands about 1000 feet above the sea, comes into view, its houses clustering round the old cathedral, and rising in the form of an amphitheatre ([Fig. 184]), tier over tier up the hillside on which it is built. From the height at which the town stands, the view over the luxuriant lower ground between it and Cannes is very commanding and delightful, the whole of the valley being laid out as gardens for the cultivation of the roses, violets, and other sweet scented flowers, from which the perfumes for which Grasse is famous are distilled.