The French Riviera outside the full months

The Riviera holds two countries that turn their backs on each other. There is the built strip along the water, continuous from Cannes to Menton, and there are the hills that begin as soon as the road leaves the shore — sometimes three kilometres inland. The second is far larger than the first, far less visited, and that is where houses rent for the price of a seafront flat.

What the month changes. In July and August the coastal strip is saturated: you cover the shore at twenty kilometres an hour, beach car parks fill early, and the hilltop villages are visited in single file. From mid-September to the end of October the sea stays above twenty degrees, the terraces are open, and you can park anywhere. In April and May the sea is cold but the light is the same, and the mimosa has been over since February.

The hinterland. The hilltop villages were built high against raids from the sea, and they have kept their plan: narrow lanes, a square, a church at the top. Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Èze are the best known and so the busiest; Gourdon, Tourrettes, Coaraze and Sainte-Agnès take fewer people for the same relief. From most of them you drop to the sea in under half an hour out of season.

The two rocks. To the west, the Esterel massif falls into the water in red porphyry, and its coves are reached only on foot or by boat. To the east, the foothills of the Mercantour rise quickly: you go from the beach to a thousand metres in an hour's drive, and there are ski resorts less than two hours from Nice. That is this coast's peculiarity, and it is little used.

Where to stay, depending. For sea and city, Nice and its old town, with an airport fifteen minutes away. For quiet and some land, the villages inland from Grasse or in the Nice back country. For sandy beaches, the west, from Cannes to Saint-Raphaël — east of Nice the beaches are shingle, which changes what you do with them.

The islands, which get forgotten. Three groups punctuate this coast, and boats run to them all year or nearly. The Lérins islands, facing Cannes, are a quarter of an hour away: Sainte-Marguerite keeps its fort, Saint-Honorat a working abbey and a vineyard. Further west, Porquerolles and Port-Cros form a national park where cars are banned, which makes them the only beaches in the region with no road behind them. Out of season the crossings are fewer but still run: that is the time to go.

Our Riviera addresses are rented direct from their owners, who know when the corniche clears and which cove is still reachable on foot.