Riviera

The Riviera has inspired countless novelists and artists, attracted as much by its visitors as by its location (Somerset Maugham called it 'a sunny place for shady people'). But for the majority of the English, the Riviera was made famous by rumour and report: it was the scene of the romance of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson; and, post-war, became the vacation spot of Hollywood starlets. But the Côte d'Azur has a long history of attracting foreign celebrities and royalty, since the seventeenth c