French Riviera

The Azure Coast

 The Cote de Azur or the French Riviera is the Mediterranean coastline in the southern part of France that also includes the principality of Monaco.   The French Riviera has one town after another where it is difficult to tell where one ends and another begins.  The towns include the famous Cannes (as in film festival), St. Tropez, Hyeres, Toulon, Antibes, Menton, and the biggest city, Nice. 

 The area first became popular as a winter health resort for British upper class at the end of the 18th century.   In the mid-19th century, aristocrats from other countries began to vacation there.  Many famous artists and writers in the first half of the 20th century spent time there as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans.  Today, it is a vacation spot for people from all over the world.

From what I observed, there seems to be wall-to-wall hotels from one end of the Riviera to the other.   We arrived on May 30th, which is technically not the tourist season, so did not experience huge traffic.  But Dan lived in Nice for a month in the summer about ten years ago and he said the traffic was terrible. 


As you can see from the photos, the Mediterranean is just gorgeous with the azure blue color and mostly sunny sky.  The average high temperature in May is 74 degrees, but it was in the 50s while we were there.  That's not a big surprise since it's been unseasonably cold for most of our travel so far. 

 The water is beautiful, but many of the beaches we saw were rock or gravel. 

Topless bathers are common. 

You can walk for long stretches right next to the water.  Just lovely.

Beautiful place to visit

Motorcyclists own the road in France.  The hotels along the coast in this photo look pretty much like the roads in the entire French Riviera.  Gazillions of them.  The hillsides have the big mansions that wealthy people from many countries and celebrities own. 

This yacht has a helicopter on the middle deck.   We're talking really wealthy people having summer homes and yachts here.

Monaco was really something.  We had the worst meal we have had on the entire trip at this huge mass-produced meals restaurant.   Dan and I both had pasta, no dessert, 1 glass of rose, and the tab was close to 60 Euro.  They charged 6 Euro for a carafe of tap water.  I think it must be the place to be seen flaunting your wealth.  We saw Ferraris, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and every other high-priced car you can think of. 

Beautiful place, but one day was enough for us.  We were happy to move on to the next part of our journey. 

Monaco-the place to be seen

Everyone taking photos of the fancy cars in front of the casino.