Granted: nobody would mistake the Alpes Maritimes for the Himalaya. After all, the mountains which line the coast of the French and Italian Riviera are easily measured in the hundreds of metres rather than the thousands. They can, however, look intimidatingly high when seen from the ground up. When you stand by the sea –…
Porquerolles – the largest of the three Iles d’Hyères just off the coast in southern France – is what the Mediterranean would look like if it had never been touched by modern civilization. It says a lot, I think, that this highlights not so much what Porquerolles has been missing out on but much rather…
The Riviera is famous for … well, many things in fact – speed boats, card sharps, minor royals – so it never ceases to surprise me how many of the visitors we meet have explicitly come to see one of the gardens of the Riviera. I am – to be honest – not a natural…
Two scenic train rides from Nice into its alpine back country are on the itinerary of most Riviera visits: the Train des Merveilles (to Tende near the Italian frontier) and the Train des Pignes (to Digne-les-Bains in the northwest). Ticking off the Train des Merveilles from our own travel schedule was one of the first things we…
Why would you want to go into a public park on the French Riviera when nature in its untamed variety – more coastal walks and mountain hikes than you could possibly pack into a long holiday – is only ever a bus ride away? On most days, admittedly, any argument in favour of a trip to…
Grasse, as Joe Namath very nearly said, is not for visiting, it’s for smoking. And you’d be surprised how many locals share this opinion, at least the first half of it: that your time would be better spent going somewhere else (not to put too fine a point on it.) Nice-Matin, our local rag, recently…
What Made Grasse Famous Has Made a Smell-O-Rama Convert Out Of Me. Few people have ever regretted that Hollywood failed to further evolve its 1950s format of Smell-O-Rama which allowed the movie houses to pipe in scents for the purpose of highlighting the cinematic narrative. Full disclosure: I have always been one of those Smell-O-Rama…
Villeneuve-Loubet is an attractive and charming little village, perhaps not the most spectacularly beautiful in the French Riviera region but one of the most alluring. This may have to do with the fact that it is located a little off the beaten track and has therefore been allowed to preserve its Provencal character more than…
Once they were giants – Breil and the Roya River. From the train, Breil-sur-Roya looks incongruously large and imposing, with its tree lined riverside avenue and two large churches in the centre of town. Located in that part of the border country between France and Italy that is characterized by perched hilltop villages and their nervous…
Forget what the French Government wants you to believe: public servants do make mistakes – which is why we were given 20 glorious minutes to explore the most famous garden in the Riviera our own The whole point of this blog is to tell you about hikes and urban walks so you can do them…
