French Riviera

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The French Riviera (French: Côte d'Azur, Occitan: Còsta Azzura) is one of the most famous resort areas in the world, extending along the Mediterranean Sea west from Menton near the Italian border, including the cities and towns of Monaco, Nice, Antibes, and Cannes. Other sources extend the Côte d'Azur further west to include Saint-Raphaël, Sainte-Maxime, Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon, and Cassis.^[1]

Contents 1 History 1.1 From prehistory to the Bronze Age 1.2 Greek influence 1.3 The Celto-Ligurians 1.4 Roman colonization 1.5 Barbarians and Christians 1.6 The Counts of Provence and the House of Grimaldi 1.7 Early 19th century; popularity among the British upper classes 1.8 Late 19th, early 20th centuries; railways, gambling, and royalty 1.9 World War I through World War II; American visitors 1.10 World War II through the 1950s 1.11 The 1960s through the 21st century 2 Geography 2.1 Places 2.2 Climate 2.2.1 Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes 2.2.2 Toulon and the Var 3 Events and festivals 4 Painters 5 Trivia 6 See also 7 Bibliography 7.1 History 7.2 Painters 8 Footnotes 9 External links

[edit] History

[edit] From prehistory to the Bronze Age

The Côte d'Azur has been inhabited since prehistoric times. A paleolithic site of a nomad people dating to 950,000 B.C. was discovered in the cave of Vallonet, near Roquebrune-Cap Martin, with stones and bones of animals, including bovines, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. Other sites were found at the cave of L'Escale, near Saint-Estève Janson (600,000 B.C.), and at Terra Amata (400,000 BC), where a fireplace was discovered, one of the oldest in Europe. The Cosquer Cave, an undersea cave between Cassis and Marseille discovered in 1991, has the oldest man-made art in the region: drawings of bisons, seals, horses and penguins, and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 B.C.

Stone dolmens, monuments from the bronze age, can be found near Draguinan. The Valley of Marvels (Vallée des Merveilles) near Mount Bégo, at 2000 meters altitude, was apparently an outdoor religious sanctuary with over 40,000 drawing of people and animals.^[2]

[edit] Greek influence

Beginning in the 7^th century B.C., Greek sailors from Asia Minor began to visit and then build trading posts (emporia) along the Côte d'Azur. The first known settlement was at Massalia (now Marseille), with colonists from Phocaea, modern-day Foça in Turkey. Other emporia were started at Olbia (Saint-Pierre de l'Almanarre, near Hyères); Antipolis (Antibes); Nicoea (Nice); and Tauroentum and Rhodanousia (Arles). These settlements, which traded with the inhabitants of the interior, became rivals of the Etruscans and Phoenicians, who also visited the Côte d'Azur. Greek traders went far inland from these emporia by river (the Rhône and the Durance or overland to Burgundy and Switzerland. One enterprising navigator from Marseille, Pytheas, traveled as far as Cornwall in about 325 B.C. in search of tin.

[edit] The Celto-Ligurians

At the beginning of the 4^th century B.C., the Ligurians, a nomadic Celtic people, invaded the south of France and travelled all the way to Ancient Rome. The Ligurian tribes of the Oxybii and Deceates settled in what is now the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var, building hilltop forts and settlements. They were soon at war with the inhabitants of Massalia, and they helped the passage of Hannibal along the coast on his way to attack Ancient Rome. In the 2^nd century B.C., the continuous conflicts persuaded the inhabitants of Massalia to invite the Romans to be their ally against the Ligurians.

[edit] Roman colonization

To subdue the Ligurian tribes in the 2^nd century B.C., Roman legions entered the region three times. In 181 B.C., a Roman army defeated the Ligurians at Genoa; in 154 B.C., the Consul Optimius defeated the Oxybii and the Deceates, who had besieged Antibes and Nice; and in 125 B.C., another Roman army crushed a confederation of Celtic tribes and their allies. The Romans decided to establish permanent settlements, first at Aquae Sextiae (Arles) in 122 B.C., then in Narbonne (118 B.C.). In 102 B.C. the Roman general Marius defeated a new invasion of Cimbres and Teutons, and began to build a system of Roman roads through the region to facilitate the movement of troops, as well as trade, with Rome. In 49 B.C., Marseille took the side of Pompey against Julius Caesar, leading to a decline in its influence, and the rise of Arles. Veterans of the Roman legions were settled at Arles and Fréjus.

In 8 B.C., the Emperor Augustus built an imposing trophy monument at La Turbie to mark the pacification of the region. Roman towns, monuments and amphitheaters were built all throughout the region, and many still survive: the amphitheater at Cimiez, above Nice; the amphitheater and Roman walls at Fréjus; farther inland in Provence, the theater in Orange; the amphitheaters in Arles and Avignon; and the triumphal arch at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

[edit] Barbarians and Christians

Roman Provence reached its height of power and prosperity during the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries A.D. In the middle of the 3^rd century, Germanic peoples began to invade the region, and Roman power began to weaken. The Western Roman Emperor, Constantine, was forced to take sanctuary in Arles at the beginning of the 4^th century.

During the same period, Christianity became a powerful force in the region. The first cathedrals were built in the 4^th century, and bishoprics were established in Arles in 254 A.D.; Marseille in 314 A.D.; Fréjus at the end of the 4^th century; Cimiez and Vence in 439 A.D.; Antibes in 442 A.D.; and Toulon in 451 A.D. The oldest Christian structure still in existence on the Côte d'Azur is the baptistery of Fréjus Cathedral, built at the end of the 5^th century. The end of the 5th century also saw the founding of the first two monasteries in the region, Lerins Monastery on an island off the coast of Cannes, and Saint-Victor monastery in Marseille.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the first half of the 5^th century was followed by invasion of Provence by the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Ostrogoths, followed by a long period of wars and dynastic quarrels, which in turn led to further invasions by the Saracens and the Normans in the 9^th century.

[edit] The Counts of Provence and the House of Grimaldi

Some peace was restored to the coast by the establishment in 879 of a new kingdom of Provence, ruled first by the Bosonide dynasty (879-1112), then by the Catalans (1112-1246), and finally by the Angevins (1246-1483).

In the 13^th century, another powerful political force appeared on the Côte d'Azur, the House of Grimaldi. Descended from a Genoese nobleman who was expelled from Genoa by his rivals in 1271, the members of the different branches of the Grimaldis took power in Monaco, Antibes and Nice, and built castles at Grimaud, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Antibes. The present Prince of Monaco is a descendant of the Grimaldis.

In 1388, the city of Nice and its surrounding territory, from the mouth of the Var River to the Italian border, was separated from Provence and came under the protection of the House of Savoy. The territory was called the comté of Nice after 1526, and thereafter had a separate language, history and culture from Provence until 1860, when it was re-attached to France under Napoleon III.

Provence retained its formal independence until 1480, when the last count of Provence, René I of Naples, died and left the comté of Provence to his nephew, Charles du Maine, who in turn left it to Louis XI of France. In 1486, Provence formally became part of France.

[edit] Early 19^th century; popularity among the British upper classes

Until the end of the 18^th century, the Côte d'Azur was a remote and impoverished region of France, known mostly for fishing, olive groves and the making of perfume. A new phase of its history began when the coast became a fashionable health resort for the British upper classes in the late 18^th century. The first British traveler to describe the benefits of the Riviera was the novelist Tobias Smollett, who visited Nice in 1763, when it was still an Italian city within the Kingdom of Sardinia. Smollett brought Nice and its warm winter temperatures to the attention of the British aristocracy through his book Travels in France and Italy, written in 1765. At about the same time, a Scottish doctor, John Brown, became famous by prescribing what he called climato-therapy, a change to a warm climate, to cure a wide variety of diseases, including tuberculosis, 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 named Henry Peter Brougham, First Baron Brougham and Vaux, who had played an important part in the abolition of the slave trade, travelled with an ill sister to south of France, intending to go to Italy. A cholera epidemic in Italy forced him to stop at Cannes, 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 because of his fame, others followed, and Cannes soon had a small British colony.

Robert Louis Stevenson was another early British visitor who came to Riviera for his health. In 1882 he rented a villa called La Solitude at Hyères, where he wrote much of A Child's Garden of Verses.

[edit] Late 19^th, early 20^th centuries; railways, gambling, and royalty

In 1864, five years after Nice became part of France, the first railway arrived there, making Nice and the rest of the Riviera accessible to visitors from all over Europe. One hundred thousand visitors arrived in 1865. By 1874 the foreign colony in Nice, mostly British, had grown to 25,000.

In the mid-19^th century, with the arrival of railways, British and French entrepreneurs began to see the potential of tourism in the South of France. At the time, gambling was illegal in both France and Italy. In 1856, the Prince of Monaco, Charles III, began constructing a casino in Monaco, which, to avoid criticism by the church, was formally called a health spa. The first casino was a failure. Then, in 1863, the Prince signed an agreement with an enterprising French businessman, Francois Blanc, already the operator of a very successful casino at Baden-Baden in the Grand Duchy of Baden in Germany, to build a resort and new casino. Blanc arranged for steamships and carriages to take visitors from Nice to Monaco, built hotels, gardens and a new casino in an area called Speluges, which, at the suggestion of Princess Caroline, the mother of Prince Charles, was renamed Monte Carlo, after Charles. When the railway finally reached Monte Carlo in 1870, hundreds of thousands of visitors began to arrive, and the population of the principality of Monaco doubled.

In the second part of the 19^th century, thanks to the railway, the Riviera became a popular destination for European royalty. Just days after the railway line opened to Nice in 1864, Czar Alexander II of Russia visited on a private train, followed soon afterwards by Napoleon III and Leopold II, the King of the Belgians.

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was a frequent visitor to the Riviera. In 1882, she stayed in Menton, near the Italian border, which had become the largest British colony in the Riviera. In 1891, she spent several weeks at the Grand Hotel Grasse. In 1892, she stayed at the Hotel Cost-belle in Hyères. From 1895 to 1899, she stayed at the Hotel Regina at Cimiez, in the hills above Nice (the Hotel Regina later became the home of painter Henri Matisse). She traveled with party of between sixty and a hundred persons, including her chef, ladies in waiting, dentist, Indian servants, her own bed and her own food.

Victoria and Albert's son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, was also a regular visitor to Cannes, beginning in 1872. He frequented the Club Nautique, a private club on La Croisette, the fashionable seafront boulevard of Cannes. He visited each spring for three weeks, took part in yacht races (he watched from shore, while the royal yacht, Britannia, was sailed by a professional crew), and he had affairs with actresses, courtesans, and the wives of aristocrats in the more relaxed moral climate of the Riviera. After he became King in 1901, he never again visited the Riviera.

By the end of the 19^th century, the Riviera also began to attract painters, who appreciated the climate, the clear light, and the bright colors. Auguste Renoir settled in Cagnes-sur-Mer, and Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso made their homes on the Riviera.

[edit] World War I through World War II; American visitors

The First World War brought down many of the royal houses of Europe, and altered the calendar social structure of the visitors to the Riviera. After the war, larger numbers of Americans began to come to the Riviera, business people and celebrities began to outnumber aristocrats, and the season gradually shifted from the winter months to the summer.

Americans had begun coming to the south of France in the 19^th century. Henry James set part of his novel, The Ambassadors, on the Riviera. James Gordon Bennett, the son and heir of the founder of the New York Herald, had a villa in Beaulieu. Industrialist John Pierpont Morgan gambled at Monte Carlo, and bought 18^th century paintings by Fragonard in Grasse and shipped them to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

An important feature of the Riviera in the 1920s and 1930s was the Train Bleu, the all first-class sleeping train which brought wealthy passengers from Calais to the Riviera. It made its first trip in 1922, and carried such passengers as Winston Churchill, Somerset Maugham, and the future King Edward VIII to the Riviera.

After World War I, when Europe was recovering from the war and the American dollar was strong, more Americans, including writers and artists, began coming to the Riviera. Edith Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence (1920) at a villa near Hyères; she won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel, the first woman to do so. Dancer Isadora Duncan frequented Cannes and Nice; she died in a freak auto accident in 1927, when her scarf caught in the wheel of the car in which she was a passenger and strangled her. The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda first visited the Riviera in 1924, stopping at Hyères, Cannes and Monte Carlo, eventually staying at St. Raphaël, where he wrote much of The Great Gatsby and began Tender is the Night.

While American visitors were largely responsible for making summer the high season on the Riviera, a French fashion designer, Coco Chanel, was responsible for making sunbathing fashionable. She acquired a striking tan during the summer of 1923, and tans immediately became the fashion in Paris.

During the crisis of the British Monarchy in 1936, Wallis Simpson, the intended bride of King Edward VIII, was at the Villa Lou Vieie in Cannes, talking with the king by telephone each day. After his abdication, the Duke of Windsor, as he became, and his wife stayed at the Villa La Croe near Antibes.

The British novelist Somerset Maugham also became a resident of the Riviera in 1926, buying the Villa Mauresque near the end of Cap Ferrat, near Nice.

[edit] World War II through the 1950s

When Nazi Germany invaded France in June 1940, the remaining British colony on the Riviera was evacuated to Gibraltar and eventually to Britain. American Jewish groups helped some of the Jewish artists living in the south of France, such as Marc Chagall, to escape to the United States. In August 1942, six hundred Jews from Nice were rounded up by the French police and sent to Drancy, and eventually to Nazi death camps. In all about five thousand French Jews from Nice perished during the war.

On August 15, 1944, American parachute troops landed near Fréjus, and a fleet landed sixty thousand troops of the American Seventh Army and French First Army between Cavalaire and Agay, east of Saint-Raphaël. German resistance crumbled in a few days.

Saint-Tropez was badly damaged by German mines at the time of the liberation. The novelist Colette organized an effort to assure that the town was rebuilt in its original style.

When the war ended, artists Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso returned to the Riviera to live and work.

The Cannes Film Festival was launched in September 1946, marking the return of French cinema to world screens. The Festival Palace was built in 1949 on the site of the old Cercle Nautique, where the Prince of Wales had met his mistresses. The release of the French film Et Dieu… créa la femme (And God Created Woman) in November 1956 was a major event for the Riviera, making an international star out of Brigitte Bardot, and making an international tourist destination out of Saint-Tropez, particularly for the new class of wealthy international travelers called the 'jet set.'

The marriage of American film actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco on April 18, 1956, attracted world attention once again to the Riviera. It was viewed on television by some thirty million people.

[edit] The 1960s through the 21^st century

On May 13, 1971, Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the rock group the Rolling Stones, married Nicaraguan model Bianca Perez de Macias in Saint-Tropez, which maintained the image of the Riviera as a haven for the rich and famous.

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 the Palais des Congrès at Acropolis, and founded both a Chagall Museum and a Matisse Museum at Cimiez. High-rise apartment buildings and real estate developments began to spread along the Riviera.

At the end of August, 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed spent their last days together on his father's yacht anchored off Pampelonne Beach near Saint-Tropez, shortly before they were killed in a traffic accident in the Alma Tunnel in Paris.

Today the French Riviera is not just an important tourist destination, but also a center for education, high technology, and scientific research. Nice is the fifth largest city in France, and is home of the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, with its own large technology and research park.

[edit] Geography

[edit] Places

Places on the French Riviera, from west to east, include:

• Cassis
• Toulon
• Hyères
• Saint-Tropez
• Fréjus
• Saint-Raphaël
• Cannes
• Grasse
• Juan-les-Pins
• Antibes
• Biot
• Villeneuve-Loubet
• Cagnes-sur-Mer
• Sophia Antipolis
• Saint-Paul-de-Vence
• Nice
• Villefranche-sur-Mer
• Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
• Beaulieu-sur-Mer
• Èze
• Cap d'Ail
• Monaco
• Monte-Carlo
• Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
• Menton

[edit] Climate

The French Riviera has a Mediterranean climate, with sunny, hot, dry summers, and mild winters. Winter temperatures are moderated by the proximity to the Mediterranean; days of frost are extremely rare, and in summer the maximum temperature rarely exceeds 30º celsius.^[3] Along the French Riviera there are a number of micro-climates, and there can be great differences in the weather between Nice on the east and Toulon on the west. Strong winds, such as the Mistral, a cold dry wind from the northwest or from the east, are another characteristic feature of the Riviera, particularly in the winter and between Toulon and Marseille.

[edit] Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes

Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes département are sheltered by the Alps, and are the most protected part of the Mediterranean coast. The winds in this area are usually gentle, blowing from the sea to the land, though sometimes the Mistral blows strongly from the northwest, or, turned by the mountains, from the east. In 1956 a Mistral from the northwest reached a speed of 180 kilometers an hour at Nice airport.^[4] Sometimes in summer the Sirocco brings high temperatures and reddish desert sand from Africa. (See Winds of Provence.)

Rainfall is rare, but can be torrential, particularly in September, when storms and rain are caused by the difference between the colder air inland and the warm Mediterranean water temperature (20°C-24°C). The average annual rainfall in Nice is 767 millimeters, more than in Paris, though it rains an average of just 63 days a year.

Snow is extremely rare, usually falling once every ten years. 1956 was a very exceptional year, when 20 centimeters of snow blanketed the coast.^[5] In January 1985 the coast between Cannes and Menton received 30 to 40 centimeters of snow. In the mountains, snow is present from November to May.

Nice has an average of 2694 hours of sunshine, or about 112 days, a year. The average maximum daily temperature in Nice in August is 28°C, while the average minimum daily temperature in January is 6°C.^[6]

[edit] Toulon and the Var

Toulon and the département of the Var (which includes St. Tropez and Hyères) have a climate slightly warmer, dryer and sunnier than Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes, but also less sheltered from the wind. Toulon has an average of 2799 hours of sunshine, or about 116 days a year, making it the sunniest city in metropolitan France.^[7] The average maximum daily temperature in August is 29.1°C, and the average daily minimum temperature in January is 5.8°C. The average annual rainfall is 665 millimeters, with the most rain from October to November.

The cold and dry Mistral wind is particularly frequent and strong in winter between Marseille and Toulon, blowing down the Rhône River Valley. Strong winds blow an average of 118 days a year in Toulon, compared with 76 days at Fréjus further east. The strongest Mistral wind recorded in Toulon was 130 kilometers an hour.^[8]

[edit] Events and festivals

Several major events take place along the French Riviera at various times of the year:

• Monaco; Circus Festival, January 27 to February 3.
• Nice; Carnival, February 10-27.
• Menton; Lemon Festival, February 12-27.
• Tourrettes-sur-Loup; Violet Festival, March 13.
• Monaco; Grand Prix Formula One race, May 12-15.
• Grasse; Rose Festival, May 12-16.
• Cannes; International Film Festival, May 12-23.
• Nice; Jazz Festival, July 8-19.
• Juan-les-Pins; Jazz Festival, end of July.
• Grasse; Jasmine Festival, August 4-7.

[edit] Painters

The climate and vivid colors of the Mediterranean coast attracted many famous artists during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Artists who painted on the coast included:

• Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947); retired to and died at Le Cannet.
• Georges Braque (1882-1963); painted frequently at L'Estaque between 1907 and 1910.
• Paul Cézanne (1839-1906); a native of Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne painted at L'Estaque between 1878 and 1882.
• Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910); discovered the Côte d'Azur in 1883, and painted at Monaco and Hyères.
• Maurice Denis (1870-1943); painted at St. Tropez and Bandol.
• André Derain (1880-1954); painted at L'Estaque and Martigues.
• Raoul Dufy (1877-1953); whose wife was from Nice, painted in Marseille and Martigues.
• Albert Marquet (1873-1947); painted at Marseille, St. Tropez and L'Estaque.
• Henri Matisse (1869-1954); first visited St. Tropez in 1904. In 1917 he settled in Nice, 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 in Vence, then returned to Cimiez, where he died and is buried.
• Claude Monet (1840-1927); visited Menton, Bordighera, Juan-les-Pins, Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Beaulieu and Villefranche, and painted a number of seascapes of Cap Martin, near Menton, and at Cap d'Antibes.
• Edvard Munch (1863-1944); visited and painted in Nice and Monte Carlo (where he developed a passion for gambling), and rented a villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in 1891.
• Pablo Picasso (1881-1973); spent each summer from 1919 to 1939 on the Côte d'Azur, and moved there permanently in 1946, first at Vallauris, then at Mougins, where he spent his last years.
• Auguste Renoir (1841-1919); visited Beaulieu, Grasse, Saint-Raphaël and Cannes, before finally settling in Cagnes-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); visited St. 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 famous Luxe, Calme and Volupté in 1904. Signac made numerous paintings along the coast.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The Côte d'Azur was used as a track in Gran Turismo 3 and Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, as well as being the name of the Monte Carlo Grand Prix track in Gran Turismo 4.

• The French Riviera was used as a setting in the 2001 video game Spy Hunter, in the missions Double Vision and French Kiss.

• Côte d'Azur is also used in the Halo series, as the capital city of the UNSC colony of Sigma Octanus IV.

[edit] See also

• Italian Riviera.
• Gulf of Genoa.
• Turkish Riviera.
• Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
• The article Riviera provides links to articles on the many coastal strips around the world which are known as Riviera.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] History

• Aldo Bastié, Histoire de la Provence, Éditions Ouest-France, 2001.
• Jim Ring, Riviera, the Rise and Fall of the Côte d'Azur, John Murray Publishers, London, 1988.

[edit] Painters

• La Méditerrranée 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.

[edit] Footnotes

The references in this article would be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.

[edit] External links

• (English) Eat Drink France, information about the Riviera
• (English) The Riviera Times, newspaper
• (English) The Riviera Reporter, magazine
• (English) AngloINFO Riviera, residents' information
• (English) Riviera Radio
• (English) South of France and Riviera guide