My trip to France was the most wonderful vacation ever. Went to the south of France for two weeks – Bandol, Nice, Monaco, La Turbie, Eze, Beausoleil and Cap d’Ail – then Geneva for three days and finally Paris for two more glorious weeks.
On the ninth of September 2010, I took the train from Bandol, in the French Riviera, towards La Turbie, north of Monaco, to meet my cousin Mauricette Gorlero and her husband Carlo Barbieri.
Because of my interest in genealogy, I found, on the other side of the world, a distant relative of my grand-mother Veronica Gorlero – Mauricette Gorlero. Knowing that I was going to be in the French Riviera, she invited me to visit them. How wonderful. I stayed with them for three days. They live in La Turbie, this fabulous medieval town.
As I awaited for my train in Nice, there on the platform, walking towards me, was Mauricette. She decided to drive to Nice to meet me. I recognized her immediately. She looks so much like my grandmother. The same beautiful face. It was lots of joy and fun and conversations about our distant relatives. My other cousin, her sister Renee Gorlero invited us over for dinner in Nice. Surrounded by a big garden and antiquities in her house, we spent such a pleasant evening. When walking down the streets of La Turbie, I was introduced as ‘ma cousine de l’ Amerique’. So much love!
Here in photos, 
La Turbie and a bit of history – (in Italian “Turbia” from tropea, Latin for trophy – is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.
La Turbie was famous in Roman times for the huge Monument that Augustus made to celebrate his victory over the Ligurian tribes of the area which lived in the mountains and attacked the merchants plying the Roman trade routes. This was the highest point on the old via Julia Augusta and the spot dominates the entire French Riviera from Estérel to the Italian coast.
La Turbie is built, partly, with old stones recovered from the ruins of the Trophy of the Alpes (Trophy of Augustus).
The 
Roman monument called Trophy of Augustus is perched above the Bay of Monaco.
During the Middle Ages, the village (called then Turbia) was mainly under the dominion of the Republic of Genoa. Dante wrote in his Divina Commedia that Turbia was the western limit of the Italian Liguria.
It was alternatively part of Savoy or the Principality of Monaco, from where the population of Turbia has assimilated the dialect Monegasque, even if the local Ligurian dialect has maintained some characteristics of the nearby Niçois of Nice. Actually the local dialect is nearly extinct, mainly after the 1860 inclusion of the Savoian 
County of Nice in France.
A limestone outcrop above La Turbie is called Tête de Chien (“head of dog”), a folk etymology deriving from its former name, Testa de camp (“head of (military) camp”).[1]
The commune formerly includes the communes of Beausoleil and Cap d’Ail, which was disestablished at the beginning of the 20th century. Only the old main town, around the remaining structure of the roman Trophy of Augustus, forms the current commune.
Mauricette’s house built on the side of the mountain, has a springwater (eau de source) under the street. The street is supported by an arch and under that arch are two Roman arches. She has a small terrace with a unique Roman ruin. What can be better than that!
2010/9/9
Love it!!