French Riviera

We arrive at the airport in Nice, where we will be transferred to the town of Saint-Raphael. In just an hour, on a perfect road along the sea coast and through the Maritime Alps, we will be at the marina, where we will get to know the crew, the crew and our yachts. We listen to the briefing and set off to purchase food for our trip. And in the evening we start a gastronomic acquaintance with France – we have dinner in the marina of Saint-Raphael.

The bay where the town is located is one of the most charming on the entire coast. The proximity of the wasteful luxury of villas and the rural, Provencal landscape, the absence of large buildings, as in Monaco, and schools of tourists, as in Nice, has a special attraction and calm charm. Even from the water, we will see that the city is buried in green crowns – these are absolutely stunning Mediterranean pins, pines that weave their flat branches overhead in the form of a mushroom, turning into a living roof. Pines and palm trees – such a landscape is difficult to find anywhere else. The center of life in Saint-Tropez is the Old Port, where the most luxurious yachts are located, so the main evening entertainment of the idle residents of the bay is a walk along the promenade along the pier. We will blend in with the crowd of millionaires and taste the local seaside cuisine with a glass of good wine.

Now you will love Mondays. In the morning, after breakfast and farewell to Saint-Tropez, we are waiting for a no less famous city – Cannes. After swimming in the azure water of the secluded bays of the coast, we will come to the marina of the city, dotted with stars day and night. The world-famous Red Carpet, the Palace of Festivals, the Avenue of Stars, George Clooney having dinner at the next table – everything here screams about cinema. And the reason for this is the tradition of the Cannes Film Festival, which has been going on since September 1939, since then the city has become a favorite place for movie stars. The spirit of Grace Kelly keeps the seventh floor of the Carlton Hotel, where she stayed while filming Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Woody Allen likes to stay at the Hotel Martinez, and scenes for the film “The Artist” with Jean Dujardin were filmed in the Suite des Oliviers. We will take a leisurely walk along the Croisette along these iconic hotels, climb to the observation deck of the old fortress of the Le Suquet hill, which overlooks the old bay and the festival palace. “To see and be seen” is the main credo of this city. And if we get tired of the noisy Croisette, we can go on a yacht to the quiet island of Saint-Honore with pines and vineyards, where monks pray in silence and make worthy wines in a 15th-century abbey.

New day – new impressions: heading to Cape d’Antibes. But first, let’s go to the mysterious island – Sainte-Marguerite. Here, in Fort Royal, in the 17th century, the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned. We will explore the secrets of this story, swim in the azure, painfully clear water and head for Antibes. Antibes and the adjacent resort of Juan-les-Pans have become a popular meeting place for actors, screenwriters who were hiding from the Cannes bustle. Majestically calm, fortified port town, the ancient stone quarters of which are overgrown with well-groomed park oases, luxurious villas and promenades of Cap d’Antibes. We should definitely look into Picasso’s house, where the artist lived and worked in the 40s of the last century, and where an impressive collection of his later works is collected. And in the evening, wander through the night art fair, full of curiosities from artists, sculptors, junk dealers and antique dealers, enjoy the cozy atmosphere of the Old Town with a glass of wine from local chateaus. But if the wine seems too trivial to us, then the ornate streets of the Old Town can lead us to the Absinthe bar, where Van Gogh met the green fairy. The cellar, the vaulted ceiling, the mid-19th-century counter, posters of odious artists, and retro sugar spoons are the perfect place to taste real absinthe.

Today we are heading to Nice – a city that combines 7 km of beaches, houses with collections of paintings by Mathis and Chagall, colorful flower, fruit, fish and antique markets, and belle époque baroque architecture. From the middle of the 19th century, Russian nobility and representatives of the intelligentsia began to settle in Nice. Local hotels still compete with each other, announcing to their guests which of the grand dukes lived with them. Tyutchev, Bunin and Gogol worked here. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote the drama “Three Sisters”. Perhaps Nice will inspire us to something great. The main square of the city – Place Massena, is dotted with sculptural masterpieces: in its southern part there is a fountain of the Sun, and in its center there is a seven-meter marble Apollo. Surprisingly, in 1970. the statue was removed from here, considering it too indecent, but in 2011. she was returned. We can afford to get lost in the streets of the Old Town, look for fragrant cheeses and crispy baguettes at local markets and have a cup of coffee on the terrace of the Museum of Modern Art, and at the same time look inside. In Nice, we should definitely try the right oysters, and we know where exactly – Le Café de Turin, whose menu includes oysters from the Roumegous family farm in the Bay of Biscay: they have been grown since 1891.