Secret French Riviera

The French Riviera is not limited to the clichés of its beaches, private yachts, and luxury hotels. For those who know how to leave behind the beaten paths, the Riviera is full of surprising details and curious sights that will amaze residents as well as visitors who thought they knew all there is to know about this region. A game of pétanque played with square boules, an astonishing aerial well, stained-plastic windows, a marble bench built in memory of the Queen of England's haemophiliac son, the instruments of the Passion of Christ, a good-luck pig, a mysterious pyramid, a monument to secret agents, an entire village that "moved house', a gas mask for horses, a statue sculpted by Saint Luke, a trapdoor in the nave of a church that opens onto a rushing torrent, a restaurant in an Orient Express railway car, Babar's beach, Tintin's Black Island, a chance to admire the Riviera's foremost pair of naked breasts, spend the night sleeping in a tree ...