Nice

There is a particular quality to the light of Nice — the same light that held Matisse on the Colline de Cimiez and persuaded the Russian aristocracy to winter along the Baie des Anges. The city wears its Belle Époque inheritance lightly: the Promenade des Anglais unrolling beside a sea of improbable blue, the ochre façades of Vieux Nice, the flower stalls of the Cours Saleya at first light. Nice is the Riviera's true capital, yet it keeps an Italian ease, a southern unhurriedness. One comes here not to be seen but to feel the year slow down, somewhere between the palms and the pebbled shore.

From Paris, the journey itself becomes part of the pleasure. Those who favour the road travel south by the A6 and A7 through Burgundy and the Rhône Valley, joining the A8 as Provence gives way to the sea — a full day's passage, best taken in a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class, its rear cabin arranged for rest, correspondence or silence. Your chauffeur manages every pause, every detail. Those who prefer the air depart Paris-Le Bourget by private jet and descend over the Mediterranean into Nice Côte d'Azur, where an FFGR driver waits planeside. Either way, the transition from capital to coast is seamless, conducted entirely at your tempo.

Stay at Le Negresco, where the Salon Royal's Gustave Eiffel dome still presides over the Promenade, and dine beneath it at Le Chantecler. Lunch should be taken at La Petite Maison, near the Cours Saleya, when the room is at its most animated. In the late afternoon, ask your chauffeur for the Basse Corniche: Villefranche-sur-Mer, then the gardens of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, perhaps an aperitif at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat as the light turns amber. On your final morning, climb the Colline du Château before the city wakes, the whole bay laid out below. Nice rewards the unhurried; we simply hold the day open for you.