French Riviera Hotels

French Riviera Hotels

Hotels in the French Riviera are often required for tourists who require short term accommodation in the region. Some may want to visit the region to see the historic cities and culture. Some tourists and other visitors may want to see the region. Some may want to see the coastline. Some may want to sail the coastline of the region on a boat.

Hotels in the French Riviera are often required for tourists who require short term accommodation. Many tourists may want to have access to culture, entertainment, sports and landscapes of the famous region. Some tourists may want to stay at large hotels or small hotels. Some tourists may want to stay at a cheap hotel or luxury hotel. Some tourists may want to have access to hotels that have a good reputation.

The French Riviera (French: Côte d'Azur, Occitan: Còsta d'Azur) is one of the most famous resort areas in the world, as much as its Italian counterpart. It extends along the Mediterranean Sea from Menton near the Italian border, including the cities and towns of Monaco, Nice, Antibes, and Cannes. Other sources extend the Côte d'Azur further west to include Saint-Raphaël, Sainte-Maxime, Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon, and Cassis.

To subdue the Ligurian tribes in the 2nd century B.C., Roman legions entered the region three times. In 181 B.C., a Roman army defeated the Ligurians at Genoa; in 154 B.C., the Consul Optimius defeated the Oxybii and the Deceates, who had besieged Antibes and Nice; and in 125 B.C., another Roman army crushed a confederation of Celtic tribes and their allies. The Romans decided to establish permanent settlements, first at Aquae Sextiae (Arles) in 122 B.C., then in Narbonne (118 B.C.). In 102 B.C. the Roman general Marius defeated a new invasion of Cimbres and Teutons, and began to build a system of Roman roads through the region to facilitate the movement of troops, as well as trade, with Rome. In 49 B.C., Marseille took the side of Pompey against Julius Caesar, leading to a decline in its influence, and the rise of Arles. Veterans of the Roman legions were settled at Arles and Fréjus.

In 8 B.C., the Emperor Augustus built an imposing trophy monument at La Turbie to mark the pacification of the region. Roman towns, monuments and amphitheaters were built throughout the region, and many still survive: the amphitheater at Cimiez, above Nice; the amphitheater and Roman walls at Fréjus; farther inland in Provence, the theater in Orange; the amphitheaters in Arles and Avignon; and the triumphal arch at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Roman Provence reached its height of power and prosperity during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. In the middle of the 3rd century, Germanic peoples began to invade the region, and Roman power began to weaken. The Western Roman Emperor, Constantine I, was forced to take sanctuary in Arles at the beginning of the 4th century.

During the same period, Christianity became a powerful force in the region. The first cathedrals were built in the 4th century, and bishoprics were established in Arles in 254 A.D.; Marseille in 314 A.D.; Fréjus at the end of the 4th century; Cimiez and Vence in 439 A.D.; Antibes in 442 A.D.; and Toulon in 451 A.D. The oldest Christian structure still in existence on the Côte d'Azur is the baptistery of Fréjus Cathedral, built at the end of the 5th century. The end of the 5th century also saw the founding of the first two monasteries in the region, Lerins Monastery on an island off the coast of Cannes, and Saint-Victor monastery in Marseille.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the first half of the 5th century was followed by invasion of Provence by the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Ostrogoths, followed by a long period of wars and dynastic quarrels, which in turn led to further invasions by the Saracens and the Normans in the 9th century.

Some peace was restored to the coast by the establishment in 879 of a new kingdom of Provence, ruled first by the Bosonide dynasty (879-1112), then by the Catalans (1112-1246), and finally by the Angevins (1246-1483).

In the 13th century, another powerful political force appeared, the House of Grimaldi. Descended from a Genoese nobleman expelled from Genoa by his rivals in 1271, members of the different branches of the Grimaldis took power in Monaco, Antibes and Nice, and built castles at Grimaud, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Antibes. The present Prince of Monaco is a descendant of the Grimaldis.

In 1388, the city of Nice and its surrounding territory, from the mouth of the Var to the Italian border, was separated from Provence and came under the protection of the House of Savoy. The territory was called the comté of Nice after 1526, and thereafter had a separate language, history and culture from Provence until 1860, when it was re-attached to France under Napoleon III.

Provence retained its formal independence until 1480, when the last count of Provence, René I of Naples, died and left the comté of Provence to his nephew, Charles du Maine, who in turn left it to Louis XI of France. In 1486, Provence formally became part of France.

Until the end of the 18th century, the Côte d'Azur was a remote and impoverished region, known mostly for fishing, olive groves and the making of perfume. A new phase began when the coast became a fashionable health resort for the British upper classes in the late 18th century. The first British traveler to describe its benefits was the novelist Tobias Smollett, who visited Nice in 1763, when it was still an Italian city within the Kingdom of Sardinia. Smollett brought Nice and its warm winter temperatures to the attention of the British aristocracy with Travels through France and Italy, written in 1765. At about the same time, a Scottish doctor, John Brown, became famous by prescribing what he called climato-therapy, a change to a warm climate, to cure a variety of diseases including tuberculosis, known then as consumption. The French historian Paul Gonnet wrote that as a result, Nice was filled with "a colony of pale and listless English women and listless sons of nobility near death."

In 1834, a British nobleman and politician named Henry Peter Brougham, First Baron Brougham and Vaux, who had played an important part in the abolition of the slave trade, traveled with an ill sister to the south of France, intending to go to Italy. A cholera epidemic in Italy forced him to stop at Cannes, where he enjoyed the climate and scenery so much that he bought land and built a villa. He began to spend his winters there, and because of his fame, others followed, and Cannes soon had a small British colony.

Robert Louis Stevenson was another early British visitor who came for his health. In 1882 he rented a villa called La Solitude at Hyères.

In 1864, five years after Nice became part of France, the first railroad arrived, making Nice and the rest of the Riviera accessible to visitors from all over Europe. One hundred thousand visitors arrived in 1865. By 1874 the foreign colony in Nice, mostly British, had grown to 25,000.

In the mid-19th century, with the arrival of railroads, British and French entrepreneurs began to see the potential of tourism in the South of France. At the time, gambling was illegal in France and Italy. In 1856, the Prince of Monaco, Charles III, began constructing a casino in Monaco, which, to avoid criticism by the church, was called a health spa. The first casino was a failure. Then, in 1863, the Prince signed an agreement with a French businessman, Francois Blanc, already the operator of a successful casino at Baden-Baden in the Grand Duchy of Baden in Germany, to build a resort and new casino. Blanc arranged for steamships and carriages to take visitors from Nice to Monaco, built hotels, gardens and a casino in an area called Speluges, which, at the suggestion of Princess Caroline, the mother of Prince Charles, was renamed Monte Carlo, after Charles. When the railway reached Monte Carlo in 1870, hundreds of thousands of visitors began to arrive, and the population of the principality of Monaco doubled.

In the second part of the 19th century, thanks to the railroad, the Riviera became a popular destination for European royalty. Just days after the line opened to Nice in 1864, Czar Alexander II of Russia visited on a private train, followed soon afterwards by Napoleon III and Leopold II, the King of the Belgians.
Queen Victoria, in 1887.

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was a frequent visitor. In 1882, she stayed in Menton, near the Italian border. In 1891, she spent several weeks at the Grand Hotel Grasse. In 1892, she stayed at the Hotel Cost-belle in Hyères. From 1895 to 1899, she stayed at the Hotel Regina at Cimiez, in the hills above Nice (the Hotel Regina later became the home of painter Henri Matisse). She traveled with party of between sixty and a hundred, including her chef, ladies in waiting, dentist, Indian servants, her bed and her own food.

Victoria and Albert's son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, was also a regular visitor to Cannes, beginning in 1872. He frequented the Club Nautique, a private club on La Croisette, the fashionable seafront boulevard of Cannes. He visited each spring for three weeks, took part in yacht races (he watched from shore, while the royal yacht, Britannia, was sailed by a professional crew), and he had affairs with actresses, courtesans and the wives of aristocrats in the more relaxed moral climate of the Riviera. After he became King in 1901, he never again visited the Riviera.

By the end of the 19th century, the Riviera began to attract painters, who appreciated the climate, the clear light, and the bright colors. Auguste Renoir settled in Cagnes-sur-Mer, and Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso made their homes on the Riviera.

Places on the French Riviera, from west to east, include:

Cassis
Toulon
Hyères
Saint-Tropez
Sainte-Maxime
Fréjus
Saint-Raphaël
Cannes
Grasse
Juan-les-Pins
Antibes
Biot
Villeneuve-Loubet
Cagnes-sur-Mer
Sophia Antipolis
Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Vence
Nice
Villefranche-sur-Mer
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Èze
Cap d'Ail
Mandelieu-la-Napoule
Monaco
Monte-Carlo
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
Menton