Secret

French Riviera

A private villa « tattooed » by Cocteau, a huge artificial rock in the middle of a Nice street, an ape that recalls experiments of questionable value carried out in the 1930s, pétanque played with square balls, a fascinating air well, stained "glass" made of plastic, a marble bench in memory of an English queens haemophiliac son, a gun that fires cherry stones, a lucky pig, a mysterious pyramid, a monument to secret agents, a puzzling palindrome, a gas mask for a horse, an ex-voto to the Virgin Mary in the form of a caiman, a statue sculpted by Saint Luke, dead people emerging from their vaults, a trap door in the nave of a church that opens onto a gushing stream, an occult museum, a restaurant in an Orient Express carriage, Babar's beach and Tintin's Black Island, an opportunity to admire the first bare breasts on the Côte d'Azur or to spend the night up a tree...

There is so much more to the French Riviera than beaches, private yachts and luxury hotels.

Wander off the beaten track and you will find the Côte d'Azur is teeming with facts and curiosities that will surprise and intrigue you, whether you are just visiting or live there and thought you knew it well.