Riviera is anItalian word that originates from the ancientLigurian territory of Italy, wedged between theVar andMagra rivers.Côte d'Azur is originally a nickname given by France to theCounty of Nice after its annexation in 1860, because the climate was similar to that of the north of Italy, even in winter, with "a sky as blue as its sea". When theMistral (Northwest) and theTramontane (North) winds are blowing in theLanguedoc andProvence areas, the temperature of the Mediterranean can be very cool in summer. This phenomenon is observed very little or not at all on the coast between the French Riviera and theItalian Riviera.[2]
This coastline was one of the first modernresort areas. It began as a winter health resort for the British upper class at the end of the 18th century. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such asQueen Victoria,Tsar Alexander II andKing Edward VII, when he wasPrince of Wales. In the summer, it also played home to many members of theRothschild family. In the first half of the 20th century, it was frequented by artists and writers, includingPablo Picasso,Henri Matisse,Francis Bacon,[3]Edith Wharton,Somerset Maugham andAldous Huxley, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. AfterWorld War II, it became a popular tourist destination and convention site. Many celebrities, such asElton John andBrigitte Bardot, have homes in the region.
Officially, the French Riviera is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents,[4] although estimates of the number of non-French nationals living in the area are often much higher.[5] Its largest city isNice, which has a population of 340,017 as of 2017.[6] The city is the centre of amétropole—Nice-Côte d'Azur—bringing together 49 communes and more than 540,000 inhabitants and 943,000 in the urban area. Nice is home toNice Côte d'Azur Airport, France's third-busiest airport (afterCharles de Gaulle Airport andOrly Airport), which is on an area of partially reclaimed coastal land at the western end of thePromenade des Anglais. A second airport atMandelieu was once the region's commercial airport,[7] but is now mainly used by private and business aircraft.[8]
TheA8 autoroute runs through the region, as does the old main road generally known as theRoute nationale 7 (officially now DN7 inVar and D6007 inAlpes-Maritimes).[9] High-speed trains serve the coastal region and inland toGrasse, with theTGVSud-Est service reachingNice-Ville station in five and a half hours from Paris. The French Riviera has a total population of more than two million. It is home to a high tech and science park (French:technopole) atSophia-Antipolis (north ofAntibes) and a research and technology centre at theUniversity of Nice Sophia Antipolis. The region has 35,000 students, of whom 25 percent are working toward a doctorate.[10] The French Riviera is a majoryachting and cruising area with several marinas along its coast. According to the Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency, each year the Riviera hosts 50 percent of the world'ssuperyacht fleet, with 90 percent of all superyachts visiting the region's coast at least once in their lifetime.[11] As a tourist centre, the French Riviera benefits from 310 to 330 days of sunshine per year, 115 kilometres (71 miles) of coastline and beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3,000 restaurants.[12]
The termFrench Riviera comes by analogy with the termItalian Riviera, which extends east of the French Riviera (fromVentimiglia toLa Spezia).[13] As early as the 19th century, the British referred to the region as theRiviera or theFrench Riviera, usually referring to the eastern part of the coast, between Monaco and the Italian border.[14]Riviera is an Italian noun which means "coastline".[15]
The nameCôte d'Azur was given to the coast by the writerStéphen Liégeard in his book,La Côte d’azur, published in December 1887.[16] Liégeard was born inDijon, in the French department ofCôte-d'Or, and adapted that name by substituting the azure colour of the Mediterranean for the gold of Côte-d'Or.[17]
InOccitan (Niçard andProvençal) andFrench, the only usual names areCòsta d'Azur in Occitan andCôte d'Azur in French.[18] A term like "French Riviera" (Ribiera Francesa in Occitan,Riviera Française in French) would only be used in literal translation, or adaptations of it. For instance, in French, "Riviera Française" is found in the onlineLarousse encyclopedia[19] to refer to the holidays of a group of English workers (moreover, in Occitan, the wordribiera "coastline" mostly works as a common name, whereas in French, the old-fashioned termRivière de Gênes was used to refer to the Italian Riviera whose center isGenoa).[20]
The Old Town district ofMenton, which is the last town on the Côte d'Azur before the Italian border
Côte d'Azur and the French Riviera have no official boundaries. Some sources put the western boundary atSaint-Tropez. Others include Saint Tropez,Hyères orToulon in theVar (departement), or as far asCassis in theBouches-du-Rhône departement.[21][22] In her 1955 novel,The Talented Mr. Ripley,Patricia Highsmith describes the Riviera as including all of the coast between Toulon and the Italian border.
The region of the French Riviera has been inhabited sinceprehistoric times. Primitive tools dating to between 1,000,000 and 1,050,000 years ago were discovered in theGrotte du Vallonnet, nearRoquebrune-Cap-Martin, with stones and bones of animals, including bovines, rhinoceros, and bison. AtTerra Amata (380,000 to 230,000 years ago), near theNice Port, a fireplace was discovered that is one of the oldest found in Europe.[23]
Stonedolmens, monuments from theBronze Age, can be found nearDraguignan, while the Valley of Marvels (Vallée des Merveilles) nearMount Bégo, at 2,000 m (6,600 ft) elevation, is presumed to have been an outdoor religious sanctuary, having over 40,000 drawings of people and animals, dated to about 2000 BC.[24]
Beginning in the 7th century BC,Greek sailors fromPhocaea inAsia Minor began to visit and then buildemporia along the Côte d'Azur. Emporia were started at Olbia (Hyères); Antipolis (Antibes) and Nikaia (Nice). These settlements, which traded with the inhabitants of the interior, became rivals of theEtruscans andPhoenicians, who also visited the Côte d'Azur.
In 8 BC, the EmperorAugustus built an imposing trophy monument atLa Turbie (theTrophy of the Alps or Trophy of Augustus) to mark the pacification of the region.
Roman towns, monuments andamphitheatres were built along the Côte d'Azur and many still survive, such as the amphitheatre andbaths atCimiez, above Nice, and the amphitheatre, Roman walls and other remains atFréjus.
The 5th-century baptistery ofFréjus Cathedral, which is still in use
RomanProvence reached the height of its power and prosperity during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. In the mid-3rd century,Germanic peoples began to invade the region, and Roman power weakened.
In the same period, Christianity started to become a powerful force in the region. The firstcathedrals were built in the 4th century, andbishoprics were established: in Fréjus at the end of the 4th century, Cimiez andVence in 439, and Antibes in 442. The oldest Christian structure still in existence on the Côte d'Azur is the baptistery ofFréjus Cathedral, built at the end of the 5th century, which also saw the founding of the firstmonastery in the region,Lerins Monastery on an island off the coast at Cannes.
The fall of theWestern Roman Empire in the first half of the 5th century was followed by invasions of Provence by theVisigoths, theBurgundians and theOstrogoths. There was then a long period of wars and dynastic quarrels, which in turn led to further invasions by theSaracens and theNormans in the 9th century.
The ruins of the Grimaldi castle atGrimaud, near Saint-Tropez
In the 13th century, another powerful political force appeared, theHouse of Grimaldi. Descended from a Genoese nobleman expelled from Genoa by his rivals in 1271, members of the different branches of the Grimaldis took power inMonaco, Antibes and Nice, and built castles atGrimaud,Cagnes-sur-Mer andAntibes.Albert II, the currentPrince of Monaco, is a descendant of the Grimaldis.
In 1388, the city of Nice and its surrounding territory, from the mouth of the Var to the Italian border, were separated from Provence and came under the protection of theHouse of Savoy. The territory was called theComté de Nice after 1526, and thereafter its language, history and culture were separate from those of Provence until 1860, when it was re-attached to France underNapoleon III.
Provence retained its formal independence until 1480, when the lastComte de Provence,René I of Naples, died and left the Comté to his nephew,Charles du Maine, who in turn left it toLouis XI of France. In 1486, Provence formally became part of France.
Popularity with the British upper class in 18th and 19th centuries
Until the end of the 18th century, the area later known as the Côte d'Azur was a remote and impoverished region, known mostly for fishing,olive groves and the production of flowers forperfume (manufactured inGrasse).
A new phase began when the coast became a fashionable health resort for the British upper class in the late 18th century. The first British traveller to describe its benefits was the novelistTobias Smollett, who visitedNice in 1763 when it was still an Italian city within the Kingdom of Sardinia. Smollett brought Nice and its warm winter climate to the attention of the British aristocracy withTravels through France and Italy, written in 1765. At about the same time, a Scottish doctor,John Brown, became famous for prescribing what he called climato-therapy, a change in climate, to cure a variety of diseases includingtuberculosis, known then as consumption. The French historian Paul Gonnet wrote that, as a result, Nice was filled with "a colony of pale and listless English women and listless sons of nobility near death".
In 1834, a British nobleman and politician namedHenry Peter Brougham, First Baron Brougham and Vaux, who had played an important part in the abolition of the slave trade, travelled with his unwell daughter to the south of France, intending to go to Italy. A cholera epidemic in Italy forced him to stop atCannes, where he enjoyed the climate and scenery so much that he bought land and built a villa. He began to spend his winters there and, owing to his fame, others followed: Cannes soon had a small Britishenclave.
In 1864, six years after Nice became part of France following theSecond Italian War of Independence the first railway was completed, making Nice and the Riviera accessible to visitors from all over Europe. One hundred thousand visitors arrived in 1865. By 1874, residents of foreign enclaves in Nice, most of whom were British, numbered 25,000.
In the mid-19th century, British and French entrepreneurs began to see the potential of promoting tourism along the Côte d'Azur. At the time, gambling was illegal in France and Italy. In 1856, the Prince ofMonaco,Charles III, began constructing acasino in Monaco, which was called a healthspa to avoid criticism by the church. The casino was a failure, but in 1863 the Prince signed an agreement withFrançois Blanc, a French businessman already operating a successful casino atBaden-Baden (southwestern Germany), to build a resort and new casino. Blanc arranged forsteamships and carriages to take visitors from Nice to Monaco, and built hotels, gardens and a casino in a place called Spélugues. At the suggestion of his mother,Princess Caroline, Charles III renamed the placeMonte Carlo after himself. When the railway reached Monte Carlo in 1870, many thousands of visitors began to arrive and the population of the principality of Monaco doubled.
The French Riviera soon became a popular destination for European royalty. Just days after the railway reached Nice in 1864, TsarAlexander II of Russia visited on a private train, followed soon afterwards byNapoleon III and thenLeopold II, the King of the Belgians.
Monument to Queen Victoria in Cimiez, in the hills above Nice, where she was a regular winter visitor
Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor. In 1882 she stayed inMenton, and in 1891 spent several weeks at the Grand Hotel atGrasse. In 1892 she stayed at the Hotel Cost-belle inHyères. In successive years from 1895 to 1899 she stayed inCimiez in the hills above Nice. First, in 1895 and 1896, she patronised the Grand Hôtel, while in later years she and her staff took over the entire west wing of the Excelsior Hôtel Régina, which had been designed with her needs specifically in mind (part of which later became the home and studio of the renowned artistHenri Matisse). She travelled with an entourage of between sixty and a hundred, including chef, ladies in waiting, dentist, Indian servants, her own bed and her own food.[25]
ThePrince of Wales was a regular visitor to Cannes, starting in 1872. He frequented the Club Nautique, a private club on theCroisette, the fashionable seafront boulevard of Cannes. He visited there each spring for a two-month period, observing yacht races from shore while the royal yacht,Britannia, was sailed by professional crewmen. After he became King in 1901, he never again visited the French Riviera.
By the end of the 19th century the Côte d'Azur began to attract artistic painters, who appreciated the climate, the bright colors and clear light. Among them wereAuguste Renoir, who settled inCagnes-sur-Mer and inMougins,Henri Matisse andPablo Picasso.
Inter-war period, American visitors and decline of the aristocracy
TheFirst World War brought down many of the royal houses of Europe and altered the nature and the calendar of the French Riviera. Following the war, greater numbers of Americans began arriving, with business moguls and celebrities eventually outnumbering aristocrats. The 'High Society' scene moved from a winter season to a summer season.
A feature of the French Riviera in the inter-war years was theTrain Bleu, an all first-class sleeper train which brought wealthy passengers down fromCalais. It made its first trip in 1922, and carriedWinston Churchill,Somerset Maugham, and the future KingEdward VIII over the years.
While Europe was still recovering from the war and theAmerican dollar was strong, American writers and artists started arriving on the Côte d'Azur.Edith Wharton wroteThe Age of Innocence (1920) at a villa nearHyères, winning the Pulitzer Prize for the novel (the first woman to do so). DancerIsadora Duncan frequented Cannes and Nice, but died in 1927 when her scarf caught in a wheel of theAmilcar motor car in which she was a passenger and strangled her. The writerF. Scott Fitzgerald first visited with his wife Zelda in 1924, stopping at Hyères,Cannes andMonte Carlo – eventually staying atSaint-Raphaël, where he wrote much ofThe Great Gatsby and beganTender Is the Night.
While Americans were largely responsible for making summer the high season, a French fashion designer,Coco Chanel, made sunbathing fashionable. She acquired a striking tan during the summer of 1923, and tans then became the fashion in Paris.
WhenGermany invaded France in June 1940, the remaining British colony was evacuated toGibraltar and eventually to Britain. American Jewish groups helped some of the Jewish artists living in the south of France, such asMarc Chagall, to escape to the United States. In August 1942, 600 Jews from Nice were rounded up by French police and sent toDrancy, and eventually todeath camps. In all about 5,000 French Jews from Nice perished during the war.
FollowingD-Day in Normandy,Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil), the code name for the Allied invasion of Southern France, commenced on 15 August 1944, when American parachute troops landed near Fréjus, and a fleet landed 60,000 troops of theAmerican Seventh Army andFrench First Army betweenCavalaire andAgay, east ofSaint-Raphaël. German resistance was not as fanatical asHitler and theHigh Command had ordered, and crumbled in days.[27]
Saint-Tropez was badly damaged by German mines at the time of the liberation. The novelistColette organized an effort to assure the town was rebuilt in its original style.
When the war ended, artists Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso returned to live and work.
TheCannes Film Festival was launched in September 1946, marking the return ofFrench cinema to world screens. TheFestival Palace was built in 1949 on the site of the old Cercle Nautique, where the Prince of Wales had met his mistresses in the late 19th century. The release of the French filmEt Dieu… créa la femme (And God Created Woman) in November 1956 was a major event for the Riviera, making an international star ofBrigitte Bardot, and making an international tourist destination of Saint-Tropez, particularly for the new class of wealthy international travellers called thejet set.
The marriage of American film actressGrace Kelly toPrince Rainier of Monaco on 18 April 1956, attracted world attention once again. It was viewed on television by 30 million people.
During the 1960s, the Mayor of Nice,Jacques Médecin, decided to reduce the dependence of the Riviera on ordinary tourism, and to make it a destination for international congresses and conventions. He built thePalais des Congrès at the Acropolis in Nice, and founded aChagall Museum and aMatisse Museum atCimiez.
The French Riviera is mostly subtropical, featuring aMediterranean climate, with sunny, hot, dry summers and mild winters. Winter temperatures are moderated by the Mediterranean; days of frost are rare. The average daily low temperature inNice in January is 5.4 °C (41.7 °F); the January average daily low temperature inToulon is 6.2 °C (43.2 °F). The average high temperature in August in Nice is 28.6 °C (83.5 °F); in Toulon the average daily high temperature is 29.7 °C (85.5 °F)
The Côte d'Azur receives more rainfall annually thanParis (803.3 mm (31.63 in) annually in Nice and 684.8 mm (26.96 in) in Toulon compared with 649.8 mm (25.58 in) in Paris), but the rainy days are much less frequent and the Riviera is considerably sunnier; 111 rainy days a year in Paris compared with 61 days in Toulon and 63 in Nice. Rain is generally more common in the Autumn and Winter months while the summers are drier. Toulon has 2,793 hours of sunshine a year, Nice has 2,668 hours.[28]
Micro-climates exist in these coastal regions, and there can be great differences in the weather between various locations. Strong winds such as themistral, a cold dry wind from the northwest or from the east, are another characteristic, particularly in the winter. Nice, in particular is surrounded by mountains to the North, protecting it from the Mistral winds making it feel milder on sunny days.
TheSirocco is a southerly wind, coming from the African continent and often felt on the Mediterranean coast of Europe. It is a hot and humid wind, occasionally carrying sand from the Sahara which is then deposited in coastal areas across Southern Europe.
The French Riviera is one of the mildest locations in the world for its latitude, owing to theGulf Stream which moderates the temperatures in Western Europe, particularly in winter and the warming effect of the Mediterranean Sea. Because of this, the region boasts a long growing season and supports the growth of exotic flora such as Citrus Fruits and Palm Trees. Snow is very uncommon in the winters and the long, hot and sunny summers have long been a draw for tourists since the days of British Aristocracy.
Nice and theAlpes-Maritimes département are sheltered by theAlps. The winds are usually gentle, from the sea to the land, though sometimes themistral blows strongly from the northwest, or, turned by the mountains, from the east. In 1956 a mistral from the northwest reached 180 kilometres per hour (110 mph) atNice Airport.[28] Sometimes, in summer, thesirocco brings high temperatures and reddish desert sand from theSahara (seeWinds of Provence).
Rain can be torrential, particularly in the autumn, when storms and rain are caused by the difference between the colder air inland and the warm Mediterranean water temperature (20–24 °C [68–75 °F]). The rainiest months are September (75.6 millimetres [2.98 in] average rainfall); October (143.9 millimetres [5.67 in]); November (94.3 millimetres [3.71 in]) and December (87.8 millimetres [3.46 in]).[28]
Snow on the coast is rare, falling on average once every ten years. 1956 was exceptional, when 20 cm (7.9 in) blanketed the coast.[28] In January 1985 the coast betweenCannes andMenton received 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in). In the mountains, snow is present from November to May.
The département ofVar (which includesSaint-Tropez andHyères) has a climate slightly warmer, drier and sunnier than Nice and Alpes-Maritimes, but is less sheltered from the wind.
The mistral, which brings cold and dry air down from the upper Alpine regions via theRhône valley and extends with diminishing intensity along the Côte d'Azur, blows frequently during the winter. Strong winds blow for about 75 days a year inFréjus.[28]
Henri Matisse (1869–1954); first visitedSt. Tropez in 1904. In 1917 he settled inNice, first at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, then at the Hôtel de la Méditerranée, then at la Villa des Alliés in Cimiez. In 1921 he lived in an apartment in Nice, next to the flower market and overlooking the sea, where he lived until 1938. He then moved to the Hôtel Régina in the hills of Cimiez, above Nice. During World War II he lived inVence, then returned to Cimiez, where he died and is buried.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973); spent each summer from 1919 to 1939 on the Côte d'Azur, and moved there permanently in 1946, first atVallauris, then atMougins, where he spent his last years.
Auguste Renoir (1841–1919); visitedBeaulieu,Grasse,Saint-Raphaël andCannes, before finally settling inCagnes-sur-Mer in 1907, where he bought a farm in the hills and built a new house and workshop on the grounds. He continued to paint there until his death in 1919. His house is now a museum.
Paul Signac (1863–1935); visitedSt. Tropez in 1892, and bought a villa, La Hune, at the foot of citadel in 1897. It was at his villa that his friend, Henri Matisse, painted his famousLuxe, Calme et Volupté in 1904. Signac made numerous paintings along the coast.
Yves Klein (1928–1962); a native ofNice, considered an important figure in post-war European art.
Sacha Sosno (1937–2013); French painter and sculptor who lived and worked inNice.
^Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency, op.cit. p.66
^In English, "Riviera" as a whole is defined as "the coastal strip along the Mediterranean from La Spezia, Italy, to west of Cannes, France".Webster's New World Dictionary of American English, Third College Edition, 1988.
^For example, J. Henry Bennett,Mentone, the Riviera, Corsica and Biarritz as Winter Climates (1862)
^"Vocabolario: Riviera".Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Istituzionali della Treccani.Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved15 June 2013.
^Harrap's Standard French and English Dictionary, 1948.
^"Côte d'Azur, côte méditerranéenne française entre Cassis et Menton" ("Côte d'Azur, French Mediterranean coast between Cassis and Menton") inDictionnaire Hachette encyclopédique (2000), p. 448.
^"Côte d'Azur, Partie orientale du littoral français, sur la Méditerranée, de Cassis à Menton" ("Côte d'Azur, Eastern part of the French coast, on the Mediterranean, from Cassis to Menton"), inLe Petit Larousse illustré (2005), p. 1297.
^Henry de Lumley,La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes europeens, p. 120.
^Aldo Bastié,Histoire de la Provence, Edition Ouest-France, 2001.
^Michael Nelson,Queen Victoria and the Discovery of the Riviera, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2007.
La Méditerranée de Courbet à Matisse, catalog of the exhibit at the Grand Palais, Paris from September 2000 to January 2001. Published by the Réunion des musées nationaux, 2000.
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