Cote D’Azur

By Deane Barker • • tags: geography, france • 1 min read •

(Credit: Pixabay user “lolo”)

This is the southeastern coast of France, also called the French Rivera. The name translates to “Coast of Azure” or “Coast of Blue,” referring to the color of the Mediterranean.

The French Riviera ends at the Italian border in the east, but where it starts in the west is up for debate. Some sources say it starts just east of Marseilles, others say it starts at Cannes, which is further east.

Popular cities in the riviera: Nice (the largest, by far), Cannes, Monaco, and Saint Tropez.

Why isn’t the entire southern coast of France considered the riviera? I tried to find a reason for the division. I found this Reddit question: Why isn’t Marseilles considered a part of the French Riviera?. Some of the answers:

They don’t share the same history and culture. Nice was independent until 1860 (and is closer to Italy than Provence), and Cannes started booming in the 19th century when the English aristocracy discovered it was a great place to stay (and built the Canal de la Siagne which supplies water to the Cannes basin).

[…] Marseilles being a working-class city with a lot of sailors, and Nice and Cannes aiming for an aristocratic and upper class kind of tourism, those cities decided to dissociate their image from the one of the cheap Marseilles by saying that it was not a part of the French Riviera, and it stayed till nowadays.

Why I Looked It Up

I didn’t note it, but I think it was mentioned in The Confessor.

Links to this – The Traitor May 28, 2024
Like the first book in the series, this is a fun spy novel. Emma Makepeace is a James Bond-ish woman working for a secret agency inside MI6. This one takes place largely on a yacht on the Cote D’Azur . There are scary Russians, commandos, spies, and intrigue. It’s not a dark or a deep novel....
Links from this – The Confessor August 17, 2023
This is the third Gabriel Allon novel I’ve read (there are presently 23 of them). It was probably the weakest of the three. There’s always an organizational villain. In the other novels , he demonized Israel and the Swiss banking industry. This time it’s the Catholic church – or a faction within...