#51 - How the French Riviera became popular!

Today we’re setting sail for the French Riviera as English speakers call it, the Cote d’Azur as French speakers call it, the azure blue coast. It’s a stretch of Mediterranean coastline that is as rich in history as it is in sun-drenched luxury.

We'll explore how it came to be so famous - from Victorian Lords, Ladies and a Queen who loved it and were sort of early influencers, to American celebrities who shaped its fame. We’ll uncover some of the best spots to visit, and share some fun facts along the way.

So grab your sunglasses and join us as we delve into the allure of the Côte d'Azur.

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• 0:00 Intro
• 1:42 How the French Riviera became popular
• 13:54 Where to find us

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT - Podcast 51: How the French Riviera became popular! 

Janine: Bonjour and welcome to the Good Life France podcast – everything you want to know about France and more. I’m Janine Marsh, I’m an author and travel writer and though I was born in London, UK, I now live in a tiny village in the far north of France with 52 animals including a rescue dove called Doris. I travel all over France year-round, seeking out the best places to visit to share with you on my website and in The Good Life France Magazine. And in between, I love to chat to you on this podcast with my podcast partner Olivier.

Olivier: Bonjour, and I’m Olivier, Oli for short, a Frenchman living in Lyon after 20 years living in the UK. I like animals too, but I am perfectly happy with one at a time. So, I only have one cat, and it’s enough for me! I’m a radio presenter – the drive time slot on a big radio station in Lyon and I also have a radio station called Paris Chanson. 

So that’s us! Now. Let’s crack on with today’s topic please Janine, what are we going to be talking about?

Janine: Today Oli, we’re setting sail for the French Riviera as English speakers call it, the Cote d’Azur as French speakers call it, the azure blue coast. It’s a stretch of Mediterranean coastline that is as rich in history as it is in sun-drenched luxury. We'll explore how it came to be so famous - from Victorian Lords, Ladies and a Queen who loved it and were sort of early influencers to American celebrities who shaped its fame. We’ll uncover some of the best spots to visit, and share some fun facts along the way. 

Oli: Ah, it’s always a great place to visit, so grab your sunglasses and join us as we delve into the allure of the Côte d'Azur.

The French Riviera, or Côte d'Azur as it's known in France, stretches from the southern edge of France to the border with Italy. Its story of glamour and allure began long before the movie stars arrived. It was the British who made it famous first, but it was the American influence in the early 20th century that really put it on the map, especially as a summer holiday destination. 

Janine: Yes, the British discovered it as it were although of course the area has been inhabited for thousands of years. You could even say the British invented the French Riviera! But they saw it very much as a winter sun destination. In the 1700s, British aristocrats flocked to Italy to discover its treasures and history as part of their so-called Grand Tour, a rite of passage, a bit like a gap year. Travelling by horse and cart and boat, they stopped on the Mediterranean Coast during winter and many of them spent time at places like Nice and Menton. A writer off the day named Tobias Smollet - wrote a book about his travels through France and Italy and wrote of the benefits of the area, warm winters, that the fresh air was good for the health, he was also Doctor. Well soon after he published it, sickly Brits started visiting the French Riviera, establishing it as the first winter resort area in the world. 

Oli: Many of those who visited had tuberculosis, including a prominent Doctor called James Henry Bennett, who caught the disease and went to Menton and claimed he was cured, allegedly due to the health properties of the climate. The doctor’s patients included the writer Robert Louis Stevenson and Queen Victoria, and when she visited the French Riviera, that was it, she was like a travel influencer some 200 years ago! The French Riviera became THE place to go for wealthy Brits and Europeans and even further afield. Pretty much anyone who had money went there – including Louisa May Alcott of Little Women fame – she described Nice in part 2 of the book!

Janine: Queen Victoria loved Nice, and often met up with other European royals – her cousin King Leopold of Belgium for instance, and Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany and her grandson. It became more of a holiday destination than a place to convalesce. The Queen liked to travel in disguise calling herself Countess of Balmoral but she fooled no one. For a start she travelled with 100 staff and on arrival and she booked 80 rooms in the Hotel Regina in Nice. It’s still there, and glorious though now it’s a private apartment block. There’s also a lovely sweet shop in Nice which the queen loved the interior looks just like it did when the Queen went there for her bonbons. She would arrive riding on a donkey sometimes as she was getting on a bit and had trouble waking sometimes – it’s well worth popping into as it’s so pretty inside. 

Oli: Nice actually has UNESCO status thanks to its historic winter tourism status. The early British visitors to Nice didn’t like the old town too much, too many peasants there so they developed their own playground, around the Cours Saleya square , and they created the Promenade des Anglais, the famous walkway for strolling along, it was paid for with money raised by the Anglican church of Nice and competed in 1824. The Nice council realised that making visitors happy also worked to develop the area. Tourists like palm trees? Yes they did – so the council planted palm trees. Tourists like parks? Yep. So Jardin Albert 1er was made. And so on.

Janine: But when springtime rolled around these wealthy holiday-makers went home and left the summer heat to the locals. Then in the 1920s, an American couple played a big part in the Riviera’s “rediscovery.”

If you visit the French Riviera in July or August, you may have trouble finding enough space on the beach to put your towel. It’s difficult to imagine that until the 1920s there were no summer tourists there, hardly any hotels and no one swimming in the sea. 

Oli: Gerald and Sara Murphy were among the first Americans to move to the Riviera. Like many artistic Americans, they left the US taking advantage of the strong US dollar and to enjoy the freedom of Paris where there was no prohibition and as Cole Porter said “Anything goes.” These were the post World War I years, the beginning of Les Années Folles, or the “Crazy Years”, in which creativity boomed. Modernism was born and Paris became the centre of all things artistic. There, you could find painters, writers and musicians from around the world forging new forms of their art. The Murphys were well off and spent time helping to restore the backdrops for the Russian ballet which had been destroyed in a fire. There they met many artists, including Pablo Picasso.

Janine: In 1922 the Murphys went to the South of France to visit Cole Porter, one of Gerald’s friends from Yale. The Murphys fell in love with the Riviera and knew immediately it was where they wanted to be.  There were no tourists in the summer and the Riviera hotels closed the first of May – after all the British winter visitors had all gone home for the summer. The Muphys convinced the owner of the Hotel du Cap in Antibes to stay open for them and that summer they entertained the first of their many visitors from Paris including Picasso who also fell in love with the area and rented a villa in Antibes.

Oli: Eventually the Murphys bought a house there. They called it Villa America and they loved to entertain though sometimes the locals were shocked by their shenanigans. Gerald had the 4 feet thick seaweed cleared from the beach where their house was, and he and the guests swam in the sea – which just wasn’t done. Picasso and his wife Olga, a Russian Ballerina danced on the sand. They had picnics and fun and everyone was happy. More artists and writers followed the trend for summer visits and made the Riviera popular with their writing and paintings. Hotels stayed open in summer to accommodate these guests and beaches were cleared of seaweed and filled with sunbathers. The most important figures of the European arts scene – Cocteau, Léger, Picasso, Man Ray, Stravinsky and Diaghilev arrived.

Janine: F Scott Fitzgerald immortalised the French Riviera in his book Tender is the Night, set in Antibes. Winston Churchill visited often and loved to paint the views. Somerset Maugham lived in Cap Ferrat and wrote about the French Riviera calling it a “sunny place for shady people.” Graham Greene lived in Antibes and wrote several books while there, Ernest Hemingway wrote The Garden of Eden. All those writers who went to the French Riviera wrote of it. More and more people visited. And so the French Riviera became the place to go in the summer too! Grace Kelly married the Prince of Monaco, a tiny principality between Nice and Menton. Rita Hayworth met and married a prince here. Sean Connery bought a villa in Nice and filmed scenes for the movie Never say Never in the Old Town of Menton. 

Oli: And it’s still very popular with celebrities. Elton John lives in Nice, Bono of U2 has a home in Eze, the wonderful late Tina Turner had a home in Villefranche-sur-Mer. But the French Riviera isn’t just for the rich and famous – I’ve been there too and it’s one of the most popular areas for visitors to France. 

Janine: And I’ve been there and I’m not remotely rich or famous! I love Eze and Menton and Nice, Villdfranche-sur-Mer but also in the more secret villages in the hillsides around. People love this area for the wonderful beaches, the sunshine, the amazing gastronomy, local wines, pretty villages, the culture, and the laid-back way of life – there’s a lot to fall in love with. But just imagine if Queen Victoria hadn’t gone there and loved it. And if the Americans hadn’t discovered it. The French Riviera might be quite different… 

Oli: We French love it just the way it is! So now, it’s time for a few fun French Riviera facts! 

Janine: Did you know that the world’s first commercial airline flight landed in Nice. In 1914, a plane flew from Paris to Nice, marking the beginning of commercial air travel to the Riviera.

Oli: The tiny principality of Monaco is smaller than Central Park in New York City, but it's packed with more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world – 1 in every 3 residents is a millionaire!

Janine: Monaco is actually the second smallest country in the world, after the Vatican in Rome.

Anyway, here’s another fact, in Nice, every day at noon, you’ll hear canon fire! The custom goes back to 1861 when a wealthy Brit go the hump with his wife because she was late for lunch nearly every day and he was hangry. So he persuaded the Nice City Council to fire a canon at noon to remind his wife if was lunch time. 

Oli: Seriously? 

Janine: Yep, seriously. The British man provided the cannon and ammunition. But when he stopped going to Nice and paying the bill, the council stopped the canon. But by now, everyone was used to it and missed it so, they reinstated it. Actually it’s not really canon fire you hear now, it’s a firework! 

Oli: The world’s most expensive home is in the French Riviera – in Villefranche – it is valued at 1.2 billion dollars. 

Janine: Is it for sale? I wouldn’t mind having a little look around that! 

Oli: No. I don’t think so, and I think they might guess you’re only “tyre kicking” as the British call it when they’re just looking and not buying! And here’s another fact, more than 75% of the world’s luxury perfumes are made from flowers grown in the French Riviera, around Grasse. 

Janine: And one final fun fact – it’s said that the first ever lemon tree grew in Menton. When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, Eve took a lemon with her and apparently she went to Menton and because it reminded her of Paradise, she planted it there! Hmmm, we do love a tall tale in France eh?! 

Oli: Absolutely! 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and that we may have inspired you to explore the sunny shores of the French Riviera! 

We just want to say a huge thank you to all of you listening to our podcast and to everyone for sharing it too. We really love sharing the France we know and love with you, the authentic and real France with its wonderful history, culture, gastronomy, wine and more. It always amazes us that people are listening in about 150 countries around the world!

Janine: Yes thank you so much everyone, wherever you are, we really appreciate it. You’ve been listening to me Janine Marsh and Olivier Jauffrit. You can find Oli at parischanson.fr playing heaps of great music, and you can find me and a ton of information about France – where to visit, culture, history, recipes – everything France - at thegoodlifefrance.com where you can subscribe to the podcast, a weekly newsletter about France and my totally brilliant, completely free magazine which you can read at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com.

But for now, it’s au revoir from me.

Olivier: And goodbye from me.

Janine: Speak to you soon!