It’s been called the playground of the rich and famous, the French Riviera and home to, amongst others through the ages, Picasso, Renoir and Matisse.  Few who have wandered the streets of St Tropez, the hills outside Cannes or savoured the views from Eze would dispute that the Cote D’Azur is beautiful, nestling behind the Alps and benefiting from over 360 days of glorious sunshine every year.

Overseas Property Centres has recently sourced a number of new and exclusive developments along the 115km coastline to offer you a range of property choices, from apartments at less than €150,000 just outside Marseille to spectacular three bedroom apartments in a unique development right on the Mediterranean.  What’s more, with our Trusted Developer Program you can buy in confidence, safe in the knowledge that we have researched the developer and the projects before presenting them to you.

Nice

Nice, on the famous Cote d'Azur, has long been a favourite with the yachting fraternity and the wealthy, famous or aspirational. However, there are many affordable properties in and around the city and plenty to keep you occupied at any time of day or night.

If shopping is your vice then the Nice Etoile in its modern and chic smoked glass building will keep you enthralled for hours. Have a look at www.nicetoile.com and select your favourite boutique or fashion label.

Should your pleasure be more based around beach living then pop along to Ville Franche sur Mer just a few minutes away from the centre. Lined with small cafes and a delightful little market this beach is more familiar to the locals than the tourists.

Then there is Eze, set atop a hill overlooking the Riviera and Monaco Eze is a mediaeval village with its own castle and several lovely restaurants. To earn serious brownie points with the other half book into Chateau Eze and enjoy yourself.

Menton

Although the pretty town of Menton is nowadays inside France, Menton once belonged to Genoa, is still Italian to look at and is as warm in winter as Capri.

This Cote d'Azur resort is used to tourists, and has had a resident English 'colony' since the 1890s. Among assorted European nobility in Menton's beautiful hilltop cemetery lie the inventor of Rugby football and Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde's friend and illustrator. Above the posh yachts and fishing boats, Menton's old town rises in a tangle of stepped lanes, pink/cream/ochre houses and tall Italianate churches.

Menton is big enough to have most of what the tourist needs, both in season and out: plenty of shops, gardens, museums (including one to Jean Cocteau housed in an old fort) and plenty going on - but nothing too over-the-top rowdy.

Menton hosts a famous Lemon Festival in February. Westward there is a curious 1930's Moorish-style Casino and a long promenade with a clean if pebbly public beach.

Behind the town stands a sheltering line of mountains and several ancient villages on high ledges, connected by little lanes and footpaths. Surprisingly for the Riviera, there is a network of such routes, including parts of two 'GRs' - Grand Randonnees, French long-distance footpaths.

Cannes

Cannes is the "star" of the French Riviera, famous for the International Film Festival and the glitzy hotels, cars, beaches and visitors attracted here.

The city of Cannes is centred around the old port, with the central part quite compact. The famous "Croisette" is the boulevard and the beach that extends around the bay to the east of the port, in the protected "Rade de Cannes". Out around the point at the west side of the port, the Boulevard Jean Hibert runs along the coast to the west, with even more fine sandy beaches. The Rue d'Antibes is the main street running east-west through the centre of the city, becoming the Rue Félix Faure at the bottom end, past the Allée de la Liberté and the port. The Boulevard Carnot runs north out of the city, through residential-shopping areas, to the A8 autoroute, and inland towards Grasse.

The closest thing to an "old town" is "Le Suquet" overlooking the west end of the port. The 12th-century Tour de Mt. Chevalier, ramparts and 12th-16th-century church Notre-Dame-de-l'Espérence give a touch of medieval flavor to the city. The Le Suquet area has narrow streets climbing up and around the hill, with a fine view from the top. Standing on the ancient rampart wall in front of the church, you can see east across the city, the port and the bay to the Cap de la Croisette, and to the west across the Gulf of La Napoule to the Massif de l'Esterel mountains.

Toulon

Toulon is a very interesting, international town. It has a pretty and active port area; the naval base; a fascinating "old town" with squares, terrace cafés, trompe l'oeil wall murals; excellent shopping, a modern main-line railway station, and lots of lovely old buildings with wrought-iron balconies.

The veille ville (old town) is large and interesting. It has a combination of Provencal village feeling with some typical seaport-town areas (little "dive" bars and places named after far-away locales). A fair number of oriental fast-food places adds to the exotic touch.

Squares (Places).There are nice squares everywhere in the old town, and it's fun to discover them by wandering randomly through the area, rather than navigating by map. And the squares aren't just in the old town. The Place de la Liberté, half way between the old town and the railway station is large and open and has a magnificant fountain on a grand scale. There's also a pleasant, open square outside the ramparts at the Porte d'Italie at the east end of town.

Passages. One area of the old town has many covered passages crossing between the long, parallel streets.

Seafront. The seafront along the port is a walking area lined with terrace cafés, souvenir shops, fishing boats, tour boats for excursions of the Rade de Toulon and the islands, yacht harbour and a backdrop of warships of the naval base.

Trompe l'Oeil Murals Here in Toulon you will find the largest and most elaborate trompe l'oeil wall murals you'll ever seen. The San Francisco scene is probably the finest. The galleon mural at the Place Vatel is actually 3-dimensional, with the front of the old sailing ship extending out from the wall in larger-than-lifesize stone.

The old town is full of terrace cafés, located in the different squares (places) scattered throughout the area. We stopped in the Brasserie Van Gogh for a morning coffee, beside the Place Fulcran Suchet. The terrace cafés at the Gare SNCF (railway station) at the upper end of town are also large, clean and comfortable. We only mention this because the cafés next to the train stations in many places tend to be the lower end of the scale.

Space Mayol is a modern, two-level indoor mall, located at the southeastern corner of the old town (at the eastern end of the port area). There are bigger malls, but this isn't bad for the centre of a French town. It has a FNAC and a large Carrefour (hypermarché - food and everything else), as well as the typical boutiques.

Marseille 

MarseilleAlthough part of the region of Provence, Marseilles has a soul of its own. Founded in 600 b.c. by the Greek sailors of Phocaea, this great city is the oldest in France and surely the most complex.

Second largest city in France and the largest commercial port, Marseilles, in the time of the French colonies, was the gateway to the Mediterranean, Today Marseilles remains a capitol of southern Europe, cosmopolitan and exuberant, with its picturesque old port, its Bouillabaisse and its folklore. Difficult to know, Marseilles does not open itself up to visitors spontaneously.

The old town ("Panier") and port, the cliff road high above the sea, the wild inlets plunging into the deep blue water for 20 km. to Cassis, this is the Marseilles of the tourist guide. But the commercial port, the airport, the oil industry, the large population all play an important part in the ecomomic role ot the whole ot Provence and complete the picture of a city rich not only economically but in culture, art and science.

To discover its unique character and beauty, one must leave the center of town and explore some of the "quartier" of which there are more than 100. Each quartier is a little Provencal village of its own with a church, a playing area for the game of Boules and the obligatory plane trees.

One can climb to 162 m, above sea level to visit the church of the patron saint of sailors, Notre Dame de La Garde. One can admire the cliffs the "Estaque" inspiration to Cezanne or go to Treille to pay homage to the well loved Provencal writer Marcel Pagnol, Marseilles can also be visited from the coast.

From the islands "lles de Frioul" and the Chateau d'If with its legend of the Count of Monte Cristo, one has a beautiful view of this ancient maritime site.

Read more about owning or buying a property for sale in France from Overseas Property Centres.