AH, the French Riviera. Fabled place where fragrant pines and silvery olive trees bask on rocky hillsides, tumbling all the way down to the sea. This fortunate corner of the Mediterranean coast looks southwards into the shimmering blue waters that long ago earned it the sobriquet Côte d’Azur.
Since the railways reached the south in the 1860s, people from cooler, northern climates have been drawn to the Riviera. Initially, they came only for winter sojourns, to escape cold, foggy air and the dangers of tuberculosis. The clean, pine-scented air of the south and the prospect of sunny days followed by casino nights had compelling allure for the of the Belle Époque. Royal patronage, via Queen Victoria from the 1880s, sealed the Riviera’s fashionable status and low prices for land in the early days created a property boom for new villas set in luxuriant gardens, amid ancient pine
