Luxury hotel holidays to Cote d'Azur

The Riviera is a short stretch of coast, but its character changes every few kilometres, and choosing the right base matters more here than in most regions. Nice is a substantial city with a lived-in old town, the flower and produce market on the Cours Saleya and an architectural heritage inscribed by UNESCO in 2021 as a winter resort town of the Riviera; it suits clients who like to walk out of their hotel to restaurants, museums and the coastal railway, and our Nice hotels range from the Hôtel du Couvent, a restored seventeenth-century convent in the old town, to the Hotel La Pérouse at the eastern end of the Promenade des Anglais. East of Nice, Villefranche, Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Cap Ferrat are quieter and more residential, and the Hotel Royal Riviera and the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat offer seclusion within easy reach of Monaco and Menton. To the west, Antibes combines an old walled town with small coves, and the Cap d’Antibes Beach Hotel sits directly on the sand. Inland, the hill villages of St Paul de Vence and Mougins bring cooler evenings and a different pace, with Le Saint Paul, Le Mas de Pierre and Le Mas Candille. Further west, Les Roches Rouges near Saint-Raphaël faces the red rocks of the Estérel, a wilder and less developed coastline. We know these places and their hotels from repeated visits, and our selection deliberately favours hotels slightly removed from the busiest thoroughfares, so that there is somewhere calm to return to at the end of each day.

Few stretches of coast have drawn so many major artists, and the museums and houses they left behind are reason enough to visit outside the beach season. In Nice, the Musée Matisse occupies a seventeenth-century villa among the olive groves of Cimiez, a short distance from the Musée National Marc Chagall, built to house his cycle of biblical paintings. Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, which he designed in its entirety, from the stained glass to the vestments, is small and quiet and rewards an unhurried visit. The Fondation Maeght, on the hillside below St Paul de Vence, holds a major collection of twentieth-century art in a building and garden conceived with Miró, Giacometti and Braque. In Antibes, the Musée Picasso is housed in the Château Grimaldi, where Picasso worked in 1946, and Renoir’s house and olive garden at Les Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where he spent his final years, remain much as he left them. The Belle Époque villas form a further thread: the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild on Cap Ferrat, with its nine themed gardens, and the Villa Kérylos at Beaulieu, a reconstruction of an ancient Greek house. Grasse, in the hills behind Cannes, has been the centre of French perfume-making for four centuries, and its skills are recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. We weave these visits into an itinerary according to your interests and the time of year, and can arrange private guides for the principal museums and private visits to Grasse perfumers.

Yes, and for many of our clients the train is the preferred way to arrive. Eurostar from London St Pancras connects in Paris or Lille with TGV services to Nice, and the journey is made comfortably in a single day, with the final stretch running along the coast through Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Antibes. Direct flights from London to Nice take around two hours, and for clients who prefer to take their own car, we plan the drive from Calais via Reims, Dijon and Lyon with one or two overnight stops each way in Champagne, Burgundy or the Drôme. Whether you need a car once there depends on where you stay. The coastal railway between Cannes and Menton links Antibes, Nice, Villefranche, Beaulieu, Monaco and Menton with frequent regional trains, so a holiday based in Nice or Beaulieu works well without one; in July and August, when traffic and parking on the coast are at their most difficult, this is a real advantage. The hill villages, the Corniche roads above the sea, Grasse and the Gorges du Verdon are a different matter, and for these a hire car or a private driver gives the necessary freedom. A pattern we often recommend is to spend the first few days in Nice without a car, then collect one on leaving the city for the hills or for Provence. All of this is arranged as a single, coherent itinerary, with rail tickets, hire car and transfers timed to connect.

Both approaches work well, and the compactness of the Riviera makes a single centre more rewarding than it might first appear. From Nice or Beaulieu, Monaco, Menton, Antibes and Cannes are all within easy reach by train, and St Paul de Vence, Vence and Èze are short drives or transfers away, so a week or more in one well-chosen hotel need not mean seeing less. A two-centre holiday on the Riviera itself usually pairs the coast with the hills: a few nights in Nice or on Cap Ferrat followed by a stay in Mougins or St Paul de Vence gives two quite different experiences of the region, one of sea and city, the other of terraces, olive trees and village restaurants. For clients with more time, the Côte d’Azur combines naturally with Provence. A route inland through the Gorges du Verdon, then on to the Luberon, leads from the Mediterranean into the lavender and wine country of Haute-Provence within a day’s unhurried driving, and our rail-drive holidays follow this pattern, arriving in Nice by train and touring with a hire car. Eastwards, the Italian border lies just beyond Menton, and the Ligurian coast, with its gardens, fishing villages and very different food and architecture, makes an interesting second centre. Rail clients can also break the journey with a night or two in Paris in either direction. We will advise on the combination and pace that suit your interests and the length of your stay.

The Riviera was first developed as a winter resort, and it remains a year-round destination in a way few Mediterranean coasts are. Average daytime temperatures are around 12°C in January and February, when the light is clear and the coast is quiet; February brings the mimosa into flower in the Tanneron hills behind Cannes, along with the Nice Carnival and Menton’s Fête du Citron. April to June is a fine season for gardens, including those of Menton and Cap Ferrat, with temperatures rising to around 20°C in May. Two May events are worth planning around rather than stumbling into: the Cannes Film Festival fills Cannes and its surroundings, and the Monaco Grand Prix, in late May or early June, raises hotel rates and booking pressure across the eastern Riviera. July and August are hot, with averages around 28°C, and the coast is at its busiest; Jazz à Juan at Juan-les-Pins is a good reason to visit in July, but this is the season when a hotel slightly removed from the main resorts is most valuable. September and October are, for many of our clients, the most rewarding months: the sea is still warm, the crowds have thinned and the harvest is under way in the small Bellet vineyards above Nice, the city’s own appellation. Note that several of the coast’s beach and resort hotels close from late autumn until spring, while our Nice hotels remain open year-round. We will always advise on timing in relation to your interests and the hotels you are considering.