Coasting along
Stylist’s designer Molly Saunders takes a sun-soaked road trip along the Cote d’Azur
Muse to Pablo Picasso and summer playground of Virginia Woolf, Provence is an oozing-with-romance region where landscapes look like postcards and golden hour was designed to take in the beauty of its lavender fields and hilltop villages. It’s where the rich and famous love to flock, and where anyone with a driving licence can luck out by renting a convertible and exploring. And there is something for everyone on the French Riviera: from the pastel-hued harbour of Cassis and the white among other famous works). You’ll have no trouble locating your perfect vibe here. Depending on where you’re heading, you can fly into Avignon, Nimes or Marseilles. We started our trip in Nice, though, where we picked up our car and drove an hour to our first stop, Les Roches Rouges, a slice of coastal hotel heaven just 13 minutes in the car from the southern town of Saint-Raphaël. A mid-century modern haven built in the 1950s, its earthy toned aesthetics and sleek design provides the perfect retro seaside cabana-esque canvas to frame the endless miles of blue sea and sky outside. And its seawater pool is a jaw-dropper. Pebble-bottomed and built into the rock just next to the surf, it lets you dabble with the sea if you don’t want to step off the jetty ladder and fully submerge.
