Stretching from the Italian border and the foothills of the Southern Alps along the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean Sea lays the Côte d’Azur the playground of the rich and famous.
Also known as the French Riviera it hosts the glamorous towns and resorts of Nice,
Menton, Cannes, Marseille and St Raphael. Their palm fringed beaches lined with luxury
hotels, elegant villas, and yacht-filled harbours, punctuate an Azur coastline of rocky
coves and fine sandy beaches framed by citrus trees, aloe, bougainvillea, mimosa and
pine trees.
The Côte d’Azur polarizes opinion like few places in France. To some it remains the
most glamorous of all Mediterranean playgrounds with its hotspot St Tropez & Monaco;
to others, it’s an overdeveloped victim of its own hype. Yet at its best – in the gaps
between the urban sprawl, on the islands, in the remarkable beauty of the hills, the
impossibly blue water after which the coast is named and in the special light that drew
so many artists to paint there captivates still.
ST TROPEZ
As the summer playground of Europe’s youthful rich, St-Tropez is among the most overhyped –
and in July and August overcrowded – spots in the Mediterranean. It remains undeniably glamorous, its vast yachts and infamous champagne “spray” parties creating an air of hedonistic excess in high summer. Alas, partaking of its designer charms can seriously dent your budget at any time of the year.
The origins of St-Tropez are unremarkable: a fishing village that grew up around a port founded by Marseille’s Greeks, destroyed by Saracens in 739 and finally fortified in the late Middle Ages. Its sole distinction was its inaccessibility: stuck on a small peninsula that never warranted proper roads, reached only by boat till the end of the nineteenth century.
Soon after, bad weather forced the painter Paul Signac to moor in St-Tropez. He promptly decided to build a house there, to which he invited his friends. Matisse was one of the fi rst to accept, with Bonnard, Marquet, Dufy, Dérain, Vlaminck, Seurat and Van Dongen following suit, and by World War I St-Tropez was an established bohemian hangout.
The 1930s saw a new influx, of writers as much as Cocteau, Colette and Anaïs Nin, whose
journal records “girls riding bare-breasted in the back of open cars”. In 1956, Roger Vadim filmed Brigitte Bardot here in Et Dieu … Créa la Femme; the cult of Tropezian sun, sex and celebrities promptly took off and the place has been groaning under the weight of visitors ever since.
NICE
The capital of the Riviera and the fifth largest city in France, Nice lives off a glittering reputation. Far too large to be considered simply a beach resort, it has all the advantages and disadvantages of a major city: superb culture, shopping, eating and drinking, but also crime, graffiti and horrendous traffic, all set against a backdrop of blue skies, sparkling sea and
sub-tropical greenery kept lush by sprinklers.
Popularized by English aristocrats in the eighteenth century, Nice reached its zenith in the belle époque of the late nineteenth century, and has retained its historical styles almost intact: the medieval rabbit warren of Vieux Nice, the Italianate facades of modern Nice and the rich exuberance of fi n-de-siècle residences dating from when the city was Europe’s most fashionable winter retreat. It has mementos from its time as a Roman regional capital, and earlier still, when the Greeks founded the city. The museums are a treat for art lovers, and though its politics are conservative Nice doesn’t feel stuffy; it has a highly visible lesbian and gay community and spirited nightlife. Of late Nice has been smartening up its act with extensive refurbishment of its public spaces and the construction of an ultra-modern tramway. Conservative it may be, but Nice
does not rest on its laurels.
CANNES
With its immaculate seafront hotels and exclusive beach concessions, glamorous yachts and designer boutiques, Cannes is in many ways the definitive Riviera resort, a place where appearances count, especially during the film festival in May, when the orgy of self-promotion reaches its annual peak.
The ugly seafront Palais des Festivals is the heart of the film festival but also hosts conferences, tournaments and trade shows. Despite its glittery image Cannes works surprisingly well as a big seaside resort, with plenty of free, sandy public beaches. You’ll find the non-paying beaches to the west of Le Suquet towards the suburb of La Bocca along the plages
du Midi, though there’s also a tiny public section of beach on Plage de la Croisette, just east of the Palais des Festivals.
Alternatively, you can explore the old aristocratic suburbs La Croix des Gardes and La Californie, once populated by Russian and British royals. Just offshore, the peaceful Îles de Lérins – Ste-Marguerite and St-Honorat – offer a sublime, easily accessible contrast to the frenetic town, while further out are the towns of Vallauris, with its interesting Picasso connections, and Grasse, famed for its perfume.
MONACO
When it comes to Monte Carlo, you will not find a more glamorous place on Earth. In fact,
its the second smallest country in the world and Monte Carlo is an independent city state.
Famous for its casino and its Formula One race, those that come from Monaco are called
Monegasques, but the majority of residents in Monte Carlo weren’t born here, making them
Monacoians. Monte Carlo is well known for its tax evasion as well.
Viewed from a distance, there’s no mistaking the cluster of towers that is Monaco. Postwar
redevelopment rescued the tiny principality from economic decline but elbowed aside much
of its previous prettiness – not for nothing was Prince Rainier, who died in 2005, known as
the Prince Bâtisseur (“Prince Builder”). This tiny state no bigger than London’s Hyde Park,
retains its comic opera independence: it has been in the hands of the autocratic Grimaldi
family since the thirteenth century, and in theory would become part of France were the royal
line to die out. It is home to six thousand British expats – including Roger Moore and Shirley
Bassey – out of a total population of around 36,000. Along with its wealth, Monaco latterly
acquired a reputation for wheeler-dealer sleaze. On his accession in 2005, the US-educated
Prince Albert II set about trying to get the principality off an OECD list of uncooperative tax
havens, declaring he no longer wished Monaco to be known – in the words of Somerset
Maugham – as “a sunny place for shady people”.
The oldest part of the principality is Monaco-Ville, around the palace on the rocky promontory,
with the Fontvieille marina in its western shadow. La Condamine is the old port on the other
side of the promontory; the ugly bathing resort of Larvotto extends to the eastern border;
and Monte-Carlo is in the middle. One time not to visit is during the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix in May – no viewpoint is accessible without a ticket and prices soar to ridiculous levels.
Comments