The Bentley, a 1962 S2 Continental, the colour of clotted cream, the leather interior the shade of oxblood that no manufacturer has successfully replicated since the 1980s, purrs past the palm trees of La Croisette in Cannes at 11am on a Tuesday in June, and nobody looks up. The Côte d’Azur, the French Riviera, the 115 km of Mediterranean coastline stretching from Cassis to Menton, has been hosting the rich, the famous, and the aspirationally glamorous for 150 years, and the casual wealth on display (the superyachts in the harbour, the helicopters ferrying guests to the Monaco Grand Prix, the sunglasses that cost more than your flight) is, at this point, part of the landscape. The Côte d’Azur is expensive. It is crowded. It is, in places, absurd. And it is, still, one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world, and the secret to enjoying it, genuinely enjoying it, not just photographing it for Instagram, is to ignore the glamour and pay attention to the light.

The Côte d’Azur: Beyond the Yachts

Nice (the city, not the Riviera cliché): Nice is the capital of the Riviera, the fifth-largest city in France, a working Mediterranean port with a population of 340,000, and the Old Town (Vieux Nice, the narrow streets, the pastel-coloured buildings, the Cours Saleya, the flower market, the vegetables, the socca, the chickpea pancake, the Nice street food, served hot from the griddle, eaten with your fingers, the simplest and best lunch on the Riviera) is the antidote to the Promenade des Anglais (the 7 km of seafront promenade, the blue chairs, the view of the Baie des Anges, the boules players, the joggers, the tourists eating ice cream, lovely but not the real Nice). The Matisse Museum (the 17th-century Genoese villa, the collection of Matisse’s work, the paintings, the sculptures, the cut-outs, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence the culmination, the light of Nice, the light that Matisse followed here in 1917 and never left) is the cultural anchor. The Russian Orthodox Cathedral (the onion domes, the gold leaf, the largest Russian church outside Russia, built 1912 for the Russian aristocracy who wintered in Nice before the Revolution) is the historical oddity. The Negresco Hotel (the pink dome, the art collection, the Chagall, the Dufy, the collection assembled by Jeanne Augier, the owner who ran the hotel for 62 years until her death in 2019, the doorman in the 18th-century livery, the public rooms open to non-guests, the bar, the Le Relais, the cocktail €22, the atmosphere priceless) is the splurge.

Antibes and the Cap d’Antibes (the artists’ Riviera): The Picasso Museum, the Château Grimaldi, the 14th-century castle on the ramparts, Picasso’s studio from 1946 for six months, the collection (the paintings, the ceramics, the photographs of Picasso at work, the view from the terrace of the Mediterranean, the same view Picasso saw), the best small museum on the Riviera. The Billionaire’s Quay (the Port Vauban, the superyachts, the Eclipse, the largest, 162 metres, the Roman Abramovich yacht before the sanctions, now someone else’s name on the transom, the sheer scale of the vessels, the crew in matching polo shirts, the sense of observing an ecosystem that operates on different rules) is the spectacle. The Provençal market (the fruit, the cheese, the olive oil, the lavender, the market in the old town, the colours, the smells, the prices that are, for the Riviera, remarkably reasonable) is the authentic Antibes.

Èze and St-Paul-de-Vence (the hilltop villages): Èze, the medieval village perched on a rock spike 427 metres above the Mediterranean, the Jardin Exotique (the exotic garden at the summit, the cacti, the view that stretches from St-Tropez to the Italian border, the best panorama on the Riviera), the narrow streets, the art galleries, the sense of having climbed into a postcard, is the essential Riviera experience, and it is almost completely spoiled by the crowds (arrive at 9am or 5pm; between 11am and 4pm, the narrow streets are a human traffic jam). St-Paul-de-Vence, the walled village, the cobbled streets, the art (the Fondation Maeght, the modern art collection, the Miró, the Giacometti, the Chagall, the building itself a masterpiece by Josep Lluís Sert, the best art museum on the Riviera, better than the Picasso in Antibes, the Matisse in Nice, or the Chagall in Nice, and largely unknown to the day-trippers who fill the village), is the companion hilltop experience. The Colombe d’Or (the hotel-restaurant, the terrace, the art on the walls, the Picassos, the Matisses, the Calders, given to the owner by the artists who could not pay their bills in the 1920s and 1930s, the collection now worth hundreds of millions, the restaurant still serving the same Provençal food) is the mythic Riviera lunch. The reservation required (book 2-3 months ahead for summer). The price (the fixed menu, the €65, the glass of rosé, the view of the valley, the sense of eating in a museum that does not know it is a museum) is a bargain.