Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur

With its feet in the Mediterranean and its head in the Alps, the region has an extensive palette of colourful landscapes.

The Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, a welcoming land of sunshine and easy living has always attracted large numbers of artists, form Van Gogh to Picas via Marcel Pagnol, Auguste Renoir and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its light is exceptionally bright, and its landscapes are wonderfully varied: from rocky inlets with their parasol pines and turquoise water to the Camargue plain, from the Vaucluse vineyards to the summits of the southernmost Alps or the plateaux of Haute-Provence with their scents of thyme and lavender… This historic region was a major crossroads for different civilisations, and has a wealth of sites which are worth the journey in themselves: Avignon and its Palais des Pales; Arles and Orange where the spirit of ancient Rome can still be felt; the dazzling 18^th-century jewel that is Aix-en-Provence; and the legendary Saint-Tropez… You’ll succumb to their magic in no time – and the same goes for the local cuisine, with its heady notes of garlic and olive oil.