Eze Perched Village
— — the colour the Mediterranean leaves on stone.
Not only on a wall.
“A medieval village built into the rock above the Côte d'Azur, between Nice and Monaco. The houses go up the cliff in stages, the lanes are narrow enough that two people pass sideways, and the old castle at the top is now a cactus garden. The summit looks out across the Mediterranean toward Cap Ferrat, and on a clear day the long blue runs unbroken. Nietzsche walked the path up from the coast and finished part of a book at the top. People still walk it.
Eze Perched Village, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Èze is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, on the French Riviera between Nice and Monaco. The village proper, Èze-Village, sits on a limestone outcrop roughly 427 metres above the Mediterranean, with the coastal hamlet of Èze-sur-Mer at its base. The commune has about 2,500 residents. From Nice the village is about 12 kilometres east along the Moyenne Corniche (the D6007); from Monaco it is roughly 8 kilometres west. Buses run from both cities, and the rail station at Èze-sur-Mer connects to the regional TER line along the coast.
The village is built into a limestone peak, with houses, lanes, and arches added in layers from roughly the 11th century onward. A castle stood at the summit until 1706, when its walls were demolished on the orders of Louis XIV during the War of the Spanish Succession; the foundations and a section of curtain wall remain. The cleared summit was replanted in 1949 as the Jardin Exotique d'Èze, a public garden of succulents and cacti laid through the ruins. Within the village, the Église Notre-Dame de l'Assomption was built between 1764 and 1778, a single-nave church in a late-Baroque idiom. The lanes between are narrow enough that two people pass sideways.
Èze-Village is reached by car along the Moyenne Corniche, by bus from Nice or Monaco, or on foot up the Chemin de Nietzsche from Èze-sur-Mer, the trail the philosopher walked while composing part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the winter of 1883. The path climbs about 400 metres over roughly 90 minutes; sturdy shoes and water are needed. The village itself is pedestrian-only and free to enter; the Jardin Exotique at the summit charges a small admission and is open through the year, with shorter hours in winter. Two perfumeries, Fragonard and Galimard, run free factory-style tours in the lower village. The view from the summit takes in Cap Ferrat, the Baie des Anges, and on clear days the silhouette of Corsica.