In this one-hour presentation, Gary Lee Kraut, editor of France Revisited, and guest expert Jean-Pierre Soutric, a consultant who advises luxury hotels in France on how to live up to the expectations of demanding and well-heeled travelers from around the world, take you to the southeast France to visit famous and historic hotels along the Riviera.

Part 1 of this luxury hotel series, examining the creation and evolution of luxury hotels in Paris from 1855 to 1909, i.e. from the era of Napoleon III though the Belle Epoque, can be viewed here.

Part 2, which examines the creation of luxury hotels from 1910 to today, can be viewed here.

Stay tuned for part 4, coming in the fall. Invitations to attend France Revisited conversations and presentations live are sent out through the France Revisited Newsletter. If you aren’t already a subscriber, you can sign up now to receive the France Revisited Newsletter.

Luxury on the Riviera: Starting time on video – Topics, towns, hotel

0:01:49 – Where is the Riviera?
0:03:43 – The origins of luxury on the Riviera
0:09:30 – Monaco: Hotel de Paris
0:16:14 – Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat: Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat and the Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa and Gardens
0:24:05 – Nice: The Negresco, coastal festivals and museums
0:29:23 – Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Cap d’Antibes: Les Belles Rives, Jazz à Juan, Hôtel du Cap – Eden-Roc
0:44:18 – Cannes: The Carlton, The Martinez, The Majestic
0:50:34 – Saint Tropez: The Byblos, La Réserve Ramatuelle
0:55:08 – When is the best time to go to the Riviera?
0:58:55 – The Riviera, playground for the rich or destination for all?
1:00:24 – Should you use a travel agent to reserve at a luxury hotel?

© 2021. All rights reserved.

Jean-Pierre Soutric follows in the footsteps of three generations in the hotel industry. His great-grandmother opened a hotel in 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War. Jean-Pierre has held marketing positions at leading hotel groups, including Four Seasons, with which he worked for 20 years. Passionate about history, culture, art and the evolution of French elegance and style through the centuries, he now works as a Paris-based luxury travel and hotel consultant advising luxury hotels in France on how to live up to the expectations of demanding and well-heeled travelers from around the world.

Gary Lee Kraut has been inspiring and informing travelers to France for three decades. His unparalleled experience as an editor, travel writer, journalist, lecturer, consultant and guide has made him one of the most trusted voices for English-speaking travelers, armchair travelers and travel professionals interested in France.

The post The History of Luxury Hotels on the Riviera (Video) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

From December through March, while grey is the predominant color of the skies of northern Europe, the coastal roads on the Côte d’Azur in southeast France burst into a Kodachrome blur of neon-yellow flowers wedged between a brilliant blue sky and the turquoise Mediterranean.

The mimosa, a hardy Australian acacia, was first introduced to France by the explorer James Cook, who presented the seeds to the future Empress Josephine. But mimosa madness didn’t take root until the late 19th century when the northern aristocrats wintering on the Riviera brightened their holiday villas with this cheery foreign flower that stubbornly stuck to its Australian blooming schedule.

The Côte d’Azur remained a winter destination until the advent of Brigitte Bardot and the bikini turned the region into a summertime fantasy land. More recently, with the goal of reinvigorating winter tourism, several towns in the Var and Alpes-Maritimes regions have banded together to form La Route des Mimosas, the Mimosa Route, 80 miles of bright yellow horticultural heaven between the medieval village of Bormes-les-Mimosas and the perfume capital of Grasse.

The major mimosa action takes place on February weekends when the towns on the route hold their corsos, parades with drum majorettes, local marching bands, and flower-bedecked floats that are planned and painstakingly assembled by village volunteer groups.

This route through the smaller villages is worth following in the summer as well as it provides respite from the crowds in the well-known beach resorts of the Riviera. Even when the mimosa season is over, the gardens and protected nature refuges along this route are among the most exceptional botanical treasures in France even though one botanist’s treasure can be another botanist’s pest, as you’ll discover in your travels along the Mimosa Route.

Bormes-les-Mimosas

The village of Bormes – after enduring the “place-with-all-the-mimosas” epithet for years – changed its name to include the ubiquitous flowers in 1968. And it makes sense: Of the 1,200 varieties of mimosa plants that exist across the world, the latest local plant census claims that 700 different mimosa varieties reside within town limits.

Moreover, the National Conservancy of Mimosa is centered in the greenhouses at the Pépinière Cavatore which nurtures 7,000-8,000 mimosa plants every year. Horticulturist Julien Cavatore waxes eloquent on his family’s specialized knowledge of the Australian acacia. Mimosas, he explains, flourish in the Mediterranean
coastal region although the fickle plants experience difficulties just a few miles (and micro-climates) north in Aix-en-Provence.

“You can’t buy one of my ‘babies’ unless I think you can care for it properly indoors or replant it in an appropriate garden environment,” Cavatore says. Indoor mimosa seedlings must be coddled like a cranky, anti-social houseguests, sequestered in an otherwise unused, unheated room with frequent watering and careful attention to their specific soil requirements.

Therefore, it’s a whole lot easier to connect with mimosas al fresco. The Australian gardens in Bormes-les-Mimosa’s spectacular, three-quarter acre Parc Gonzalez showcase the golden flowers in addition to other exotic plants such as banksia and eucalyptus. For fans of manmade culture, note that architectural jewels such as the 16th-century chapel dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi (who visited Bormes on his anti-plague tour in 1481) show up in many of the garden settings.

The town’s major non-floral tourist attraction is the Fort de Brégançon, a 15th century military installation designated as a presidential vacation residence since 1968. Rarely used in recent years while running up an annual maintenance bill of 200,000 €, Former President François Hollande opened it to the public in 2013 although his successor seems less likely to relinquish the keys on a permanent basis. President Emmanuel Macron has already installed a swimming pool on the premises and entertained Theresa May at Brégançon for Brexit talks in August 2018. Open to visitors in July and September only. Tickets available through the Bormes-les-Mimosas Tourist Office.

The Domaine du Rayol in Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer

In 1908, Parisian businessman Alfred Courmes purchased 99 acres of wild beachfront terrain and began to build his personal paradise with a mini-farm, a grandiose villa and an antique-style pergola. After several subsequent private owners, the property was destined to be chopped up for building units in 1974 until several local associations protested.

The environmentalists’ ecological dream came true in 1989 when the land was acquired by the Conservatoire du Littoral, the French coastal protection agency. The Domaine du Rayol, 49 acres of Mediterranean herb-and-pine-scented brush called maquis, is the anti-Versailles. No orderly rows of petunias. No geometric parterres. No fountains with Greek gods. The Domaine du Rayol is a “planetary garden” in the words of its landscaper-in-chief Gilles Clément, as well as a “moving garden” in constant evolution.

The first idea on Clément’s drawing board was a patchwork of regional greenery native to Mediterranean-style climates all over the world. Thus, during the December-to-March mimosa season, it’s hard to miss the bright gold Australian reserve. But there’s much else to see as well as other areas are devoted to graceful Asian ginko trees, Californian chaparral and Jurassic Park-style giant ferns from New Zealand. A remarkable 300-year-old cork tree stands as a gnarled reminder that this region once earned its baguettes-and-butter from the production of wine corks.

Nature lovers should plan for a full day to explore the grounds; there’s a charming outdoor café for lunch and snacks. And the plant life isn’t all on dry land either. Visitors can check out the seaweed too because the Domaine offers summertime wading tours along the beachfront as well as snorkeling expeditions. For the latter, all equipment is provided. Reservations are mandatory through the Domaine du Rayol website. While on that site, see if your plans coincide with one of the tree-climbing Sundays or the summer concert schedule.

Sainte Maxime and Saint Raphael

These side-by-side beach resorts have very different architectural profiles: The most lavish holiday villas in Sainte Maxime are stripped-down examples of Art Deco, whereas the shoreline of Saint-Raphael is dominated by the extravagant, wedding-cake fantasies of the Belle Epoque.

Both towns provide a large choice of Provençal boutiques. During winter, many local pastry shops stock mimosa-flavored chocolates produced at the artisanal candy workshop “La Muscadine” in Sainte-Maxime. Like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, they taste like Riviera sunshine on the tongue. If you miss the mimosa season, console yourself with Muscadine’s chocolate creations flavored with lavender, violet, and rose petals.

Mimosa continues to delight tourists, florists and perfume companies (more later) but every splash of yellow at the Massif de l’Estérel nature reserve in Saint Raphael is regarded with fear and loathing by the Park Service. It turns out that mimosa, like most things in life, has a dark side.

The reserve, a hiker’s dream, dominated by dramatic red cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean, has become an anti-mimosa battleground. Mimosa may be notoriously picky about its climate and soil preferences but, like Goldilocks, when it gets what it wants it takes over. “It’s an invasive foreign plant that crushes the local flora. Cutting, uprooting and burning simply encourages it to spread,” explains Forest Ranger André Frey. Mimosa is Nature’s Nietzsche: what doesn’t kill it, makes it stronger.

The Estérel Reserve, a haven for native Côte d’Azur pines, thyme and sage, offers a variety of walking tours and bike, VTT and even motorcycle treks are available. Information is available through the Saint Raphael Tourist Office.

Tanneron and Mandelieu-La Napoule

In August 1986, fires destroyed 12,480 acres of Riviera forest and the hardest-hit area was the Tanneron Mountain. During mimosa season, that hill is now entirely and breathtakingly golden in winter; the traditional Mediterranean brush is nowhere in sight, which is worrisome to many botanists. Tanneron can therefore be seen is either a glorious symbol of flower power or the scary incubator of yellow peril. It all depends on what side of the botanical barricades you’re on.

Just a few miles away, Mandelieu-La Napoule takes most of its golden color from the Palme d’Or (The Gold Palm) at the nearby Film Festival. A bedroom community of Cannes, Mandelieu is more international than the previous towns on the route and has its own Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Oasis.

Nevertheless, it hosts its own folkloric corso (the 2019 theme was Marco Polo complete with dromedaries) which parades right past the 14th century chateau lovingly restored by American artist Henry Clews Jr (1876 – 1937) and now open to the public. There’s a distinct fairy-tale aura to the castle—the stone inscription over the door reads “Once Upon a Time.”

Grasse

Surrounded by fields of blossoms, Grasse is the fragrance capital where mimosa (and roses and jasmine and violets…) are distilled into tiny bottles of money. Last year, it gained listing to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage register for its floral savoir-faire in the arts of perfumery.

Mimosa is one of principal scent factors in Amarige (Givenchy), Paris (Yves Saint Laurent), Champs-Elysées (Guerlain), L’Eau d’Azur (Occitane), Masumi (François Coty) and Moment Suprême (Jean Patou).

Fragonard, established in Grasse in 1926, simply calls their mimosa scent Mimosa. At present, the Perfume Museum in Grasse offers limited exhibits while under renovation. All the more reason to head to Fragonard, which has its own museum (yes, there’s a relation to the painter) and workshops (reserve ahead) where visitors can get a chance to make their own fragrance.

Planning Your Trip

If beginning the Mimosa Route in Bormes-les-Mimosas, Toulon-Hyères is the closest airport and Toulon and Hyères are the closest TGV stations. If starting in Grasse, Nice is the more convenient choice whether arriving by train or plane.

Information on planning a trip to the areas covered by the Mimosa Road is found on the official tourist sites of the department of Var, the Côte d’Azur and the Mimosa Route, in addition to those of the towns mentioned in this article.

Fancy four-star options are thin on the ground at present but they’re in the works: The Belle Epoque-style Grand Hotel of Bormes-les-Mimosas (ca 1903), is currently under renovation and construction is slated to begin on an all-new luxury hotel on a hillside overlooking the old town of Grasse.

In the meantime, profit from charming (and bargain-priced for the Riviera) options such as the Café du Progrès in Bormes-les-Mimosas whose casual restaurant serves some of the best home-made tapenade on the coast as well as lush plats du jour such as minced lamb pastilla. The cozy inn above the restaurant has a small but refreshing pool.

One pays extra for the waterfront views at the venerable Excelsior Hotel in Saint Raphael, but more dramatic scenery is offered by city-side rooms that overlook the remarkable Roman-Byzantine Notre-Dame de la Victoire Basilica, built in 1883 from the region’s pink sandstone.

The Café de France in Sainte-Maxime has been run by the same family since 1852. Directly across from the town’s small but lively fish market, it’s a great place to sample daurade (sea bream) in butter sauce with a side of black rice topped with white truffles. There’s live jazz on winter weekends.

© 2019, Corinne LaBalme

The post Winter on the Riviera: The Mimosa Route appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

France is a golfing country? Who knew?

Turns out lots of people, including the 410,000 members of the French Golf Federation and hundreds of thousands of occasional players swinging and putting away at 733 clubs and on over 600 courses of 9+ holes.

And the world’s foremost golfers knew as well since France will be hosting this year’s Ryder Cup from September 28 to 30. Twenty-four of America’s and Europe’s top players will meet in the biennial USA vs. Europe match play contest at Le Golf National, 18 miles southwest of the heart of the Paris in Guyancourt, just beyond Versailles.

Held every two years since 1927, other than during WWII, and, skipping 2001, on even years since 2002, the Ryder Cup has grown from a U.S.-England competition to a U.S.-UK and Ireland competition to a U.S.-Europe affair since 1973. Alternating between an American venue and a European venue, this is the first time the event is being held in France.

That represents top-flight confirmation that France takes its golf seriously. It’s also the occasion to shine a light on some of the most prestigious courses and resorts in choice destinations throughout the country, from Normandy to Basque Country to the Riviera and Provence by way of world-class courses within easy reach of Paris.

Introduced into France by English visitors in the second half of the 19th century, golf initially developed wherever there was a significant colony of British residents and vacationers: Pau, which had first course in continental Europe, the Basque Coast, the Rivera, Brittany, Normandy.

Here is a selection of top golf clubs, courses and resorts throughout France, particularly those in areas where golf can be combined with tourism. The map shows their location throughout France. Also see Gold Digest’s list of best golf courses in France for this year.

Within easy reach of Paris
The greater Paris region and just beyond comprise France’s premier golfing zone. Among the dozens of courses within easy reach of the capital, a trio of prestigious clubs are within putting distance of the major palaces: Versailles, Fontainebleau and Chantilly. Well, maybe not putting distance, but certainly a quick drive. So a visitor to the capital can easily opt of a golfing daytrip, while the rest of the family heads to palace.

I take that back. There’s no reason to choose between golfing and touring. At Versailles, for example, you can stay the luxurious Hôtel Trianon Palace located just outside the palace gates and easily fit a half day at Le Golf National on your itinerary. The club’s world-class Albatros course is just six miles southwest of Versailles. The Trianon Palace is the official base camp for the two teams during the Ryder Cup.

South of Paris, Golf de Fontainebleau is a historic course in Fontainebleau Forest, less than a mile from the palace, making for an especially easy golf-and-palace daytrip or overnight from the capital. Though redesigned over the years, the course still bears some of the marks of Tom Simpson, the British course designer who was behind a half dozen courses in France, including Chantilly and Morfontaine on the opposite side of Paris.

North of Paris, Golf de Chantilly is also less than a mile from the palace of Chantilly.

Normandy
Deauville, the queen of Normandy resort towns, has four courses nearby, including Golf Barrière Deauville. Deauville is an hour’s drive from the center of the D-Day Landing Zone.

A simpler way to combine golf with war touring is to include in your itinerary a round at the Omaha Beach Golf Club. The course and club house may be less dashing than most of the others on this list, but its situation on the cliff between Omaha Beach and Port-en-Bessin makes it an easy fit into any touring schedule. Here’s your schedule: Utah, Omaha, golf, Gold, Juno, Sword. Supreme Allied Commander-cum-President-cum World Golf Hall of Famer Dwight Eisenhower, who installed a putting green on the White House lawn, would be proud of you.

Le Touquet Golf Resort, is a fine course that’s also by the English Channel, just north of Normandy in Upper France.

Loire Valley
Castle + garden, castle + biking, castle + vineyard, castle + fine dining, castle + golf. There, I’ve just created your itinerary for a few days in the Loire Valley. Les Bordes at the northeastern end of the heart of the Loire Valley, between Orleans and Blois, is the course of choice in the region.

The Bordeaux Region
We all enjoy a good wine pairing: wine and cheese, wine and women, wine and song. How about wine and golf? Pair your saint emilion grand cru classés with the Tom Doak-designed course at the Grand Saint Emilionnais Golf Club. Pair your haut-médoc, perhaps even your margaux, with Golf du Médoc, 12 miles north of Bordeaux.

Basque Country and the Landes
Golf got an early foothold in the southwest corner of France due to it being a destination for wealthy British travelers in the second half of the 19th century. Golf de Biarritz Le Phare, created in 1888, was among the first. A century later it was joined by Golf d’Ilbarritz, an accompanying training center.

Golf d’Hossegor is a 45-minute drive to the north from Biarritz, where Basque Country gives way to the pines and cork oaks of the Landes region.

Côte d’Azur: The Riviera and nearby hills of Provence
Given the wealth and lavish hotels along the Riviera, the nearby hills of Provence naturally offer an abundance of locations for luxurious puttering about. That’s why the Côte d’Azur region recently created a golf pass covering 20 courses. The pass is especially intended for those who would like to tour the area via its golf courses by offering special pricing for a 2- or 4-course vacation in fall and winter and for 4-course stay in spring and summer. Many of the venues lie in the Antibes-Cannes-Mandelieu-Grasse zone.

The first golf course created along the Mediterranean was developed in the 1890s at the request of an exiled Russian grand duke who had previously encountered the sport at St. Andrews in Scotland. Cannes-Mandelieu’s Old Course Golf is the heir to that first course.

A few miles inland from Cannes and on the edge of Mougins, a town known for its annual culinary festival, Royal Mougins Golf Resort is among the most prestigious in the region.

Further afield and an exclusive world unto itself lies the Terre Blanche resort.

Corsica
As far as golf courses go, you can’t get any more Mediterranean in France than Golf de Spérone in Bonifacio on the southern tip of Corsica.

For a complete listing of golf courses in France see Tous les Golfs.

General admission tickets for match play at this year’s Ryder Cup, Sept. 28-30, sold out long ago, but ticket packages are available at publication time. General admission during the three days of team practice and other events leading up to the contest are also still available.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post The 2018 Ryder Cup Shines a Spotlight on Golf in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo is a major marker in European history, as is the French Revolution is. In fact, the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, herald to the Revolution, and the Battle Waterloo, imminent end of the Napoleonic wars, are the bookends of an era whose heritage is visible throughout French law and society. It’s an era that historians get into fisticuffs about and that tourists are endlessly curious about, or should be.

For much of the world—except perhaps the British, proud of Wellington’s victory as an important step in their own 19th imperial dynamics—Waterloo speaks far more about the fall of Napoleon and of France’s ambitions in Europe under his leadership than it does of the victory of the forces allied against him and against France. An extended period or peace between the monarchies of Europe ensued, though within that peace were fault lines and ambitions that would eventually burst into flames, repeatedly, within and along the borders of the convenient meeting ground of Belgium.

For the American reader, few will recall that George III, routed by the American colonies and their French support three decades (Treaties of Paris and of Versailles, 1783), was still on the throne of his re-expanding kingdom in 1815. Or, more to the point, that George III’s Britain was so trigger happy after the first fall of Napoleon that they burnt Washington, DC to the ground. Or that the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815 and the Battle of Waterloo were major steps in Prussia’s rise to power in Europe. Important history indeed. But while Napoleon lost the battle he perennially appears on the cover of The Men of Europe calendar. George III? Frederic William III? They don’t even get their birthdays mentioned. James Madison, President of the United States at the time? Who knew?

At Waterloo, Napoleon and his 73,000 men went to battle with 68,000 forces allied under the Duke of Wellington, including soldiers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, forces from other places where George III had friends and family, and soldiers of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, none of whose leaders cared much for French homogeny and civil order and the threat of a French-style separation of Church and State. Field Marshal Blücher and 50,000 Prussian forces arrived in the afternoon to turn the tide of battle against the French.

Having witnessed the defeat of his strategy and the devastation of his troops (25,000 French dead and wounded) Napoleon returned wearily to Paris where he was soon forced to abdicate (June 22). He eventually surrendered himself to the British and was taken to England before being shipped off to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic to prepare his memoires. He died there in 1821 at age 51. Meanwhile, Louis XVIII was restored to the throne of France, a kingdom forced into its pre-Napoleon borders of 1790.

Waterloo led to Napoleon’s second and final abdication. His first took place on April 6, 1814, following a series of victories by the allied coalition and the occupation of a city whose name is no longer associated with Napoleonic defeat (hint: Paris). He was sent to the Isle of Elba, a small Mediterranean island between Italy and Corsica, along with his personal guard of hundreds of faithful troops. There, Emperor of Elba, he was kept abreast of happenings in Europe and state of affairs in France. Aware of the struggle in France between the heirs of the Ancien Regime and the heirs of the Revolution (Napoleon was heir to the latter) and of France’s diminished place on the world (European) stage, he felt that France couldn’t live without him and that he couldn’t live without France.

Less than a year later into his first exile, Napoleon, having gained a few pounds while on sabbatical, escaped Elba on Feb. 26, 1815 with his band of faithful guards and landed in Golfe Juan, a fishing village 12 miles east of Cannes on March 1. Over the next eight days he and his men, skirting as much as possible the royalists of Provence, he advanced north, gathering troops and other supporters along the way, particularly on the approach to Gap, where he was greeted as a savior. He arrived in Grenoble on March 8. From there, having rallied the French troops that had been sent out by Louis XVIII to arrest him, the route back to the imperial throne of France was all his. Upon his arrival in Paris on March 20, the Flight of the Eagle, as it became know, “from bell tower to bell tower until the towers of Notre-Dame,” was complete.

The route that Napoleon took from the coast to Grenoble, eventually more or less followed by National Route 85, has been labeled La Route Napoléon since 1932. Dozens of towns and villages (including Portoferraio on the Isle of Elba) along 195 miles of coastal, mountain and valley road—Cannes, Mougins, Grasse, Sisteron, Digne, Gap, Grenoble, to name the best known along the route—promote their affiliation with the emperor. They’ve naturally pulled out all the stops this year, with reenactments during the anniversary dates in March and festivities through the spring and summer. Itineraries have now been created to follow portions on foot and, for the portion from Grasse to Grenoble, on horseback.

In honor of the bicentennial of his passage through the region, one of the historic perfumers in Grasse, Galimard, has released Napoleon 1815, a new fragrance for men. The emperor was known to wear a lot of cologne, so associating the emperor with a fragrance makes sense.

One might expect a musky, woody fragrance but what one first registers with Galimard’s Napoleon 1815 is its sweeter side, the citrus, orange blossom and rose and a hint of fig, before detecting the leather boots set beside a camp bed beneath a cedar tree on a warm day along the Mediterranean. Chantal Roux, the fragrance’s creator, says “We wanted to enter into the softer side of Napoleon.” So instead of the little corporal in kinship with his battle buddies, one encounter (or becomes) the emperor as seducer on a walk with a lady on a garden path.

Galimard is a family-owned perfumer created in Grasse in 1747 by Jean de Galimard, who produced perfumes used to scent gloves—the fashion at the time—along with pomades and olive oils. Napoleon 1815 is available at Galimard’s factory-museum-boutiques in Grasse and in Eze-Village and through Galimard’s website for 65€ per 100ml atomizer. The installations in Grasse and Eze offer free tours, and at Eze visitors can take part in a brief cologne-making workshop (10€) so as to blend your own cologne. More extensive perfume initiations and workshops are available at both Grasse and Eze.

I might have written about the perfume during the bicentennial commemorations of his victorious return from exile rather on the anniversary of his momentous defeat at Waterloo. But as I said earlier, it isn’t French defeat that Waterloo represents today so much as the life and times of Napoleon himself, a powerful whiff of history that continues to pervade France.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Whiff of Napoleon in Victory and in Defeat appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Don’t you get tired of running into Kim and Kanye in Monaco, Brad and Angie in Cannes, Elton and David in Saint Tropez?

Then set your GPS for La Ciotat, a breezy Mediterranean port 18 miles east of Marseille that mixes the raw beauty of the Côte d’Azur with the je-ne-sais-quoi of Cleveland. It’s a paparazzi no-fly zone where the beaches, the prices, and the food are better than you’d expect and a low-profile port that gives the town a whole lot of ‘come hither’ for tourists with an allergy to $500 bikinis.

It’s not that La Ciotat never got up-close and personal with celebrity tourism. Back in late 19th century, when the Lumière brothers, Henri Stendhal and Georges Braque vacationed here, the town was a notably fashion-forward destination.

In 1857, the establishment of the Messageries Impériales gave La Ciotat a parallel raison d’être as the hub for France’s naval shipyards, a function that gradually eclipsed its tourist vocation. When the yards closed in the 1987, the port sunk into a deep, dark depression.

Both facets of this comparatively recent past co-exist with an old town replete with photogenic 17th-century penitential chapels and 18th-century stone façades.

The Eden Theatre, fully restored in 2013, is the world’s oldest movie palace, screening the first Lumière moving pictures in 1895. (Here’s one of them, a 1-minute film of a train arriving at La Ciotat.) Its current eclectic, line-up (e.g. Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, Godard’s Adieu au language, Chaplin’s Modern Times and The Rocky Horror Picture Show) continues to draw film buffs.

And while the city is pluckily re-inventing itself as a hospital for the yachts of the 1%, it hasn’t forgotten its working class romance with oil and methane freighters of yesteryear. Giant cranes loom over the old city’s skyline. Instead of deploring these rust-friendly relics, La Ciotat jauntily sought (and received) landmark status for one of the largest hulks.

That’s the back view. The beauty shot, however, is full frontal, whether by day

or by night

Back to the beach

For some reason, guidebooks insist that only Marseille and Cassis have calanques, the hilly, Mediterranean inlets that can be best be described as Scandinavian fjords lined with pines and cacti.

Forget that: La Ciotat’s botanical Parc de Mugel, has some of the prettiest and best-protected calanques in Provence. Keep it a secret that only you and the locals will share. These isolated beaches are accessible by car, bus and boat. But remember, mum’s the word.

Closer to town, going east of the Old Town and the harbor, there are lots of scenic beaches in city limits as well. And no, these are not in any sort of industrial zone.

In fact, La Ciotat is quite ahead of the times with a 21st-century spin on segregated sand. There’s one beach, inaugurated in 2011, that’s an entirely cigarette-free zone. Another, opened in 2012, welcomes dogs.

Party like it’s 1720

When most cities look around for a party theme, they don’t come up with “The Plague.” However, La Ciotat is not like most cities, so the locals break out in pustules every October for a festival that, quite literally, flirts with the Black Death.

The whole thing was the brain-child of Mireille Benedetti, the guiding spirit of the Bastide Marin (see further below) just outside town. The swashbuckling, three-day event takes place around the Old Port, requires over 1,000 costumes, and draws up to 100,000 attendees.

This year’s fever fest is slated for October 17th-19th. (Get a preview of former fêtes here.)

Pack an umbrella because, according to Liliane Siréta, director of the La Ciotat Tourist Office, it always rains on this particular parade. ”Mud makes everything more authentically 18th century,” she adds cheerfully. (By the way, La Ciotat residents always know if it’s going to rain. When the clouds touch the ‘Trois Secs’ hilltops outside of town, they never wash the car.)

Back to Nature

When pirate raids and plagues got too pesky for La Ciotat’s population, the citizenry headed inland to an area known as Céreste. The Bastide Marin is the optimistic (and sadly underfunded) response to keep this part of the area’s history alive.

Centered round a delightfully dilapidated aristocratic manor house studded with mysterious underground chapels and cabalistic mosaics that have yet to be deciphered, the property now encompasses organic gardens, period arts ‘n crafts, beehives, livestock and a farmyard filled with the sort of geese and chickens that were popular in medieval times.

Where to stay, where to eat

In its own quiet way, without Michelin-star fanfare, people eat very well in La Ciotat without paying Côte d’Azur prices.

Check out the seafood specialties at the informal L’Oustaou (12 Bd Anatole France, Tel. 04 42 08 28 26) on the waterfront just outside the Old Town. An anchovy pizza is only 10€, the moules grantinées à la provençale with frites maison are 18€, and our Italian dining companions licked their plates of squid tagliatelle clean. (Added bonus for families: There’s a handy playground right across the street.)

Guestrooms start at only 119€ (in high season!) at the seaside 3-star Hôtel Plage Saint-Jean. There’s WiFi, a covered pool, and a sauna… and better yet … an in-house restaurant serving some of the best bass and elegantly epicurean fruit tarts on the coast. Make dinner reservations even if you’re staying elsewhere.

Also make note of Damien Arnaud’s Mediterranean cuisine at the Roche Belle, (Corniche du Liouquet, tel. 04 42 71 47 60).

Further information: La Ciotat Tourist Office, Boulevard Anatole France, 13600 La Ciotat. Tel. 04 42 08 61 32.

Getting There: Frequent TER trains from Marseille to La Ciotat take 25 minutes and cost roughly 7€.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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At 39€ (21€ for children ages 4 to 12) for three consecutive days and 54€ (29€ for children) for six consecutive days, the card throws open the doors to over 100 sights and activities along the Riviera and into the Mercantour Montains which rise up from the coast. The card can be used for consecutive days between April 26 and October 31, 2014.

Most of the major art museums along the coast and inland are accessible with the pass: the Bonnard Museum at Cannet, the Picasso Museum at Antibes, the Cocteau Museum of Menton, the Fernand Leger Museum at Biot, and many others. Taking in several of these museums over a 3- or 6-day period reveals the influence on the work of these 20th artists of the light and leisure along the Riviera. The Maeght Foundation, at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is also included. Entrance there alone normally costs 15€.

The culinary arts also have their place in the Côte d’Azur Card with access to Escoffier Museum of Culinary Art at Villeneuve-Loubet. And the coast’s most popular museum, Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, which normally costs 14€, is also free with the card. Other than several of Nice’s major museums (notably the Museum of Modern Art and the Chagall and Matisse Museums), which aren’t included, the variety of sight and activities in Alpes-Maritimes, as this corner of France is officially called, is well represented by this single piece of plastic.

Possession of the pass doesn’t imply that you’re sole interest in travel along the Riviera is its museums as it also gives access to a variety of outdoor sites such as Menton’s Serre de la Madone Garden and Monaco’s Exotic Garden. You can even use the pass to take the boat from Cannes to Ile Saint-Honorat (one of the Lerins Islands), for a guided tour at Grasse, Antibes or Vence, to play miniature golf in Antibes, to go to the racetrack at Cagnes-sur-Mer or to go sea kayaking at Cap d’Ail or Menton.

Don’t worry, you’ll still find time for a leisurely walk by the beach and an unhurried moment in the café.The choice of a seat is all yours.

The Côte d’Azur Card is available at tourist offices throughout the region and in hotels and other accommodations, as well as online (later this month) at the official website for the card, www.cotedazur-card.com.

The Riviera’s official portal for tourist information is www.frenchriviera-tourism.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

By Daniele Thomas Easton

Every winter, during our sojourn by the French Riviera, away from the American northern inclemency, my American husband and I seem to embark on a quest for some Holy Grail, usually a gastronomic quest. This year, it is the elusive bagel that has captured our interest and energized us.

Sunday brunch is not the same, here or at home, without the traditional bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon and the works! There is a sad reality, whatever your age or nationality: after splurging on croissants and brioches at breakfast time, one reaches a level of saturation and wants to revert to old habits, healthier or not.

What gave us the idea – erroneous – that the search would be easy this year was the discovery of a center city eatery baptized “Bagel History,” Avenue Notre-Dame, a few footsteps from the cathedral. Comforted by this ecumenical neighborhood, we stopped by to purchase a few bagels that were offered on the menu. Non, we could only order and consume their ready-prepared feasts with appealing names like The Manhattan, The Central Park, The Hudson River and, yes, The Nissart (meaning “from Nice” in the local dialect), with tuna, olives, tomato, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, red pepper… and vinaigrette.

We managed to extort, after many compliments on their innovative menu, the name of the supplier of bagels, a new bakery in town, BREAD. No rampant linguistic Americanism, BREAD is the acronym of Boulangerie Responsable et Amitié Durable, a fair-trade establishment where bread is made with organic ingredients, in an artisanal manner, sourdough et al.

Early one Saturday, I woke up and walked to BREAD to make sure I would get the four bagels I had ordered the day before. Although BREAD only sells bagels to restaurants, the owners have a soft spot for foreigners with a yearning for home food and accept orders placed by individuals! The salesperson was sorry… priority had been given to a last minute’s order of 10 bagels by a regular client, a promising new chef.

There is no law against lackadaisical bakers in Nice! One has to bite the bullet, if not the bagel, and accept fatality. We negotiated for a similar order for Sunday. Patience is a virtue. Back home early Sunday, a proud acquirer of a French version of the baker’s dozen (in this case a baker’s four: our original order plus one on the house as an apology), I prepared breakfast.

From the height of his food knowledge and his Brooklyn upbringing, my husband punctured my balloon: “This is no bagel, a bastardized version of baguette, brioche and bagel, maybe… But definitely no bagel!”

Well, the bagel was no real bagel, the cream cheese was no real cream cheese either—we use light ricotta cheese, even if Philadelphia cream cheese has made it here—but, all in all, brioche-like bagels aren’t bad. Four went that morning. And the fifth one, that evening, went pretty well with a creamy goat cheese and a glass of Haut-Beynac, 2010.

Bagel History, 27 avenue Notre-Dame, 06000 Nice. Tel.  04 93 92 39 05. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-7pm.

BREAD Boulangerie Responsable, 44 boulevard Gambetta 06000 Nice. Tel. 04 89 98 67 24.

© 2013, Daniele Thomas Easton

Daniele Thomas Easton is the Director of France-Philadelphie, which provides consulting for French-American business and cultural projects. She is the former Honorary French Consul to Philadelphia (PA) and Wilmington (DE). When not wintering in Nice she and her husband live in Philadelphia. In 2007 she received France’s Legion of Honor.

Note: Photos above are not of BREAD bagels.

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* * *

I’d received a letter written in a strange hand inviting me to taste some baked pineapple at one of the tents of the Christmas market near the bottom of the Champs-Elysées. Odd! I went to see what it was all about.

While walking through Place de la Concorde, I came across Phileas Fogg, Miss Mimosa, and Jean Passepartout.

I asked if I could take their picture. Mr. Fogg said that he and Passepartout were in a hurry but they kindly allowed me to do so. Miss Mimosa gave me a little wink, I thought, before I realized that it was just the pleasant November sun in her eyes.

Miss Mimosa handed me a few sprigs of her namesake flower and off they went.

I turned to go up the Champs-Elysées where I saw coming towards me 16 Brazilian dancers. I could tell they were Brazilian because, well, you could just tell. They’d apparently come out of the tent where I’d been invited to taste the baked pineapple. There were eight female dancers in monokinis and feather headdress. The headdress rested on their shoulders and was covered at its base with a glittery fabric that draped down to partly cover their breasts. There were also eight male dancers in tight white bellbottoms and bronze naked torsos. I lifted my camera to their picture of the troop as they sambaed by but the hip of one of the Brazilians hit my elbow and my shot went up into the air, where it captured the copy of one of the Horses of Marly rearing by the entrance to the Champs-Elysées.

Following right behind the Brazilian dancer were six men playing kettle drums on wheels, three elephants, a tiger, a dozen dwarves carrying mimosas, the large head of a king, a dragon led on a chain by a mad, wiry trainer, three men and three women carrying baskets of lemons, and a cast of characters the likes of which I’d never seen on the streets of Paris.

A chimpanzee rode the lead elephant and waved at me to follow. He pointed to the big wheel on the opposite side of the Obelisk, by the entrance to the Tuileries Garden. That’s where they were headed.

Traffic stopped as the parade crossed over to the Obelisk. As I watched them cross I realized that I was witnessing a preview of winter festivities on the Riviera. The three festival towns had apparently coordinated their efforts and their schedules for their February Mardi Gras-time festivals.

Mandelieu-La Napoule, nestled near Europe’s largest mimosa forest, had brought along its flowers and its chosen beauty for its Mimosa Festival, Feb 15-24, 2013.

Nice had brought along some of its dancers and its King of the 5 Continents, sovereign of the next Carnaval, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.

Menton had brought along Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, who planned to make a detour for the “Around the World in 80 Days”-themed Lemon Festival, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

I lifted my camera to take a picture of the long train of this mixed parade, but just then the chimp took my elbow and my camera veered off toward one of the fountains on the square.

The chimp pulled me over to the Ferris wheel, threw me into a gondola along with one of the Brazilian dancers and jumped in beside me. Then up we went for some a remarkable view.

We all squealed in delight. Well, the monkey squealed in delight. The Brazilian dancer squealed with vertigo. And I squeal with surprise when the dancer, unable to look out and burying her face in her breasts, lowered her headdress into my face, where the feathers tickled my nose.

I asked the chimp if he would take a picture of me and the Brazilian dancer but he wouldn’t hold still.

I asked her if he would take a picture of me and the chimp but she wouldn’t look up.

I spread her feathers and looked down at the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre.

After we returned to earth, my Brazilian companion lifted her head and sambaed off the gondola. Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout rushed off to catch a train for Geneva. And the rest of us said teary good-byes promising to all get together on the coast in February. All but the chimp, who hung around with no place to go.

I was in such a fine mood that I invited him home to help me make a pumpkin pie, for American Thanksgiving was two days later.

When I got home I realized that I’d forgotten to buy the ground ginger called for in the recipe. The chimp didn’t want to go back out for it and I didn’t want to leave him alone in the apartment. I thought about what I could replace the ginger with and remembered the Viagra pill that a doctor friend had given me when I was feeling a bit down after my cat died a few years ago, so I ground that up.

The recipe also called for ground cardamon. I didn’t know what that was so the chimp looked it up on the google machine. Looking over his hairy shoulder I saw that cardamon resembled another pill that someone once gave me in a Latino nightclub when I’d suggested at 3 a.m. that it was getting late, so I crushed that up too.

The chimp licked the bowl. While the pie was yet in the oven he started bouncing off the walls and humping the couch, so I kicked him out and haven’t heard from him since.

On Thanksgiving I took my pumpkin pie to the apartment of the friend who was hosting the meal. I set on the table the sprigs that Miss Mimosa had given.

The pie was a hit The French guests wanted to know what spices I’d use.

“Mostly cinnamon and nutmeg,” I said. “A few cloves.”

“And where’d you get the mimosas? Where you just on the coast?”

“Sort of,” I said, momentarily missing the chimp.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu-La Napoule, Feb 15-24, 2013.
Carnaval in Nice, Feb. 15-March 6, 2013.
Lemon Festival in Menton, Feb. 16-March 6, 2013.

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1500: Number of Americans residing on the Riviera.
1000: Number of Americans with a second home on the Riviera.
4: Rank of the United States on list of top tourist markets. The top 3 are Italy, the British Isles and Germany.
9: Percentage of Americans among foreign visitors in hotels on the Riviera (down from 23% in 1985).
16: Percentage of American visitors to the Riviera who visit during the period November to March.
50: Percentage decrease in 4* and 5* hotel occupancy on the Riviera by Americans between 2000 and 2010.
19: Percentage of American visitors lodging in hotels on the Riviera who stay in Cannes (second largest percentage after Nice).
43: Percentage of American visitors lodging in hotels on the Riviera who stay in Nice.
3: Percentage of Americans who are not “entirely satisfied” by the visit on the Riviera (75-80% are “very satisfied”).
109: Average daily spending on the Riviera per American arriving by plane, in euros.
49: Percentage of Americans arriving by plane who have already been to the Riviera at least once.
23: Percentage of Americans arriving by plane who come to the Riviera primarily for business.
42: Percentage of Americans who say that they shop while on the Riviera.
10: Percentage of Americans who go to a casino on the Riviera.
Beautiful, people, food, weather: Top 4 positive words that Americans use in describing their stay on the Riviera.
Hotel, expensive, traffic, poor: Top 4 negative words that American use in describing their stay on the Riviera.

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And now, for two days only, Cannes as fortress for a gathering of world leaders as the G20 meeting comes to town under a lingering odor of Greece for the largest summit meeting that France has ever known.

On Nov. 3-4, 2011, the “banana” of Cannes, as the town center within its boulevards is called, will host heads of state and delegations—10,000 participants in all—along with 3,000 journalists and a security force of another 10,000.

But they’ll soon be gone, leaving to more stylish purses the main bastions of luxury along Cannes’ waterfront Boulevard de la Croisette: the Majestic (Barrière), whose location places it at the center of major events, including the G20 summit and the film festival, the Martinez (Concorde), the Carlton (InterContinental), and others.

Here are four boutiquish alternatives:

5* Five Hotel & Spa. 1 rue Notre-Dame. The latest entrance to the 5-star club in Cannes opened in 2011. 45 rooms, including 15 spacious suites.

4* Le Cavendish, 11 boulevard Carnot. 34 rooms.

4* L’Hotel de Paris (Golden Tulip), 34 boulevard d’Alsace. 50 rooms.

2* Le Romanesque, 10 rue du Batéguier. 8 rooms.

Also read The Riviera, American Style.

© 2011

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