French Riviera
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Food&Drink
In The Know
Did You Know?
- Isadora Duncan, the infamous American dancer, spent her last months in the Hôtel Négresco, until her untimely death outside the hotel in 1927, when her trailing scarf caught in the wheel of her Bugatti and broke her neck.
- The Bay of Angels took its celestial name from the story of Réparate, Nice's 15-year-old patron saint, who died a martyr in Caesarea in Palestine. One evening in the year AD 250, fishermen in the bay saw a frail boat containing the young girl asleep on a bed of flowers, guided by two angels and a dove, bringing Réparate home to Nice.
- The Cannes International Film Festival was founded in 1939 but the outbreak of war led to the postponement of the first festival until 1947. It has taken place here every year during two weeks in May, and attracts famous faces from all around the world. Cinemas all over town screen films from early morning to well into the night, but you are unlikely to get tickets unless you are accompanied by Bardot or Bond 007.
- There are 30 major parfumeries in and around Grasse. Each employs a head perfumer known as le nez. There are 300 'noses' in the world, 150 of whom work in France, 50 in Grasse. Their job is to blend many different essences to create a new fragrance. It takes 900,000 rosebuds to produce one litre of essence, which could cost anything up to F125,000.
- Out of countless applications for Monégasque citizenship, Prince Rainier has accepted only around 4,000 in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, the star studded list of foreign residents includes Karl Lagerfeld, Anthony Burgess, Boris Becker, Steffi Graf, Alain Prost, Claudia Schiffer and Luciano Pavarotti.
- A word of warning! In 1993 the Mayor of St-Raphaël reinstated an ancient decree forbidding people to walk around town in swimsuits, so make sure you cover up when not on the beach. The same is true of Ste-Maxime, where there is a fine for scantily clad tourists.
- Guy de Maupassant described St-Tropez in the 1880s as 'An enchanting and simple daughter of the sea, one of the modest little towns that have grown in the water like a shellfish, fed on fish and sea air, which produces sailors. It smells of fish and burning tar, brine and boats. Sardine scales glisten like pearls on the cobblestones.'
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