French Riviera
A short introduction
Nederlands: https://yeswecannes.substack.com/p/cote-dazur
Français: https://yeswecannes.substack.com/p/cote-azur-34f
Español: https://yeswecannes.substack.com/p/costa-azul
In Between
Life on a boat outside the summer season mostly consists of things no one ever posts on Instagram: sanding, painting, fixing leaks, replacing cables, taping, repairing, repairing again, and believing for five minutes that everything is finally done — until you discover your kettle now serves hot vinegar instead of tea.
Between paint layers and rolls of tape, I looked out over the harbour today and wondered: How do you actually explain what the French Riviera really is?
Not the brochures.
Not the postcards.
But the layers underneath.
So here’s a small introduction — just in between everything else.
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What exactly is the French Riviera?
Ask ten people and you’ll get twelve answers.
For some, it stretches from Saint-Tropez to Menton.
For others, it only starts at Cannes and ends in Monte Carlo.
What everyone agrees on are the colours.
That impossible blue light of the Mediterranean that once kept painters like Matisse, Chagall, and Picasso here — and still convinces millions of people to return every year.
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A coastline full of contradictions
The English aristocracy once “discovered” the mild winter climate and built villas along the sea. Fishermen slowly moved out of the picture, artists moved in, and since then each generation has added its own wave of new arrivals.
Tell someone from Nice that someone from Cannes is “just like him,” and he’ll laugh in your face.
From a distance it looks like one coastline, but in mentality it’s a collection of small islands:
• Cannes: slightly snobbish, according to its neighbours.
• Nice: half French, half Italian, warm and chaotic.
• The hinterland: simpler, friendlier, slower.
In between you’ll find North Africans, North-French migrants, Europeans enjoying their retirement, and a colourful mix of people drawn here by the sun.
The French themselves call it “le miroir aux alouettes” — a mirror birds fly into, blinded by the shine.
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Jet set — and the shadow behind it
The real jet set began with tsars, queens, and English nobility who built winter palaces here. Then came the artists. Then the film stars.
Today, many of their villas belong to the nouveaux riches — some with less romantic CVs than Matisse or Queen Victoria.
A Dutch restaurateur once told me:
“Ninety percent of the money here comes from drugs and weapons.”
Probably exaggerated, but it gives you an idea of the atmosphere: admiration mixed with suspicion, glamour with a crack in the glass.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t stop the tourists.
Six million visitors a year, almost half of them Italian.
The Dutch barely make up two percent.
The rest come for the same mix I enjoy: light, colour, chaos and charm.
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And me?
Outside the season I mostly live with tape, tools, and paint under my fingernails.
Not glamorous — but perfect.
A place where all these different stories meet in one harbour, one coastline, one strange little corner of the world that never gets boring.
And as I prepared my boat for the winter, I realised this might be the truest way to describe the French Riviera.
The French themselves call this place “le miroir aux alouettes” — a glittering mirror that attracts dreamers, but where some, like birds, end up flying straight into it.
Perhaps that’s both the charm and the warning of this coastline.
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More soon — next time, a real story again.