Your local WATA contact :  VIP RIVIERA SERVICE

For FITs and small groups interested in art, we suggest a range of services to discover the cultural side of the Riviera.

Please find below a sample package. We shall be pleased to design one according to your very own needs:

4* Hotel (Cannes)

In the heart of the Golden Triangle in Cannes, just 50m from la Croisette and 300m from the Palais des Festivals, the 3.14 is much more than a hotel. It is a universe which will move those whose open-mindedness pushes back boundaries.

3.14 is part of the idea of discovering the planet, and everything is keeping with the rules of harmony. This means that the ancestral techniques of Feng Shui have been used to define the layouts of fittings in the various areas of the hotel and to encourage the optimal circulation of energy in relation to the five elements: water, hood, fire, hearth and metal.
Each floor of the 3.14 symbolizes a universe representing one of the five continents (America, Africa, Oceania, Europe and Asia). When the lift doors open onto a floor, all the senses are immediately on alert : the colours, the scents, and the music… visitors are already elsewhere.

SERVICES
Private sedan transfers on arrival and departure On your arrival in Nice, our bilingual driver will be holding up a name sign and will be greeting you after baggage collection.  For departure, you will be collected at your hotel to reach the airport for your return home.

Private touring with driver/guide :  Enjoy a private tour of the Riviera in a luxury private van. Your multilingual driver will explain you the different sights and show you places which you would not have discovered on your own while telling you the latest “news” of the Riviera.

In the matter of art, the French Riviera has it all: unique architecture, great artists and beautiful landscapes.

Here are two sample tours: 

1.   En route to Nice: Chagall and Matisse museums

NICE, as founded in 350 BC by the Greeks of Marseilles, was only a modest trading-post. The Romans concentrated their colonization efforts on Cimiez, whose splendour obliterated the little market town on the east bank of the Paillon with a port at the eastern end of what is now the Quai des Etats-Unis. Barbarian and Saracen invasions, however, reduced Cimiez to nothing, and it was Nice that began to develop under the Counts of Provence in the 10C. Since 1860,  the development of Nice, which then had 40,000 inhabitants, has been prodigious. It is today, the second largest town of Mediterranean France after Marseilles and the fifth largest in France itself.

You will visit the Marc Chagall Museum, which is the result of Chagall’s donation to France.
Built in 1972, it houses the most important permanent collection of the painter’s works. Built partly of glass and hidden among the trees on a hill in Cimiez, the museum’s cadre was realized especially for Chagall’s “Biblical Message”. The canvasses are shown to their best advantage owing to the set-back walls and the large windows opening on to the bright Mediterranean light. Greeting the visitor into a sacred world of lyrical fantasy is a multi coloured tapestry, showing Chagall’s personal feeling for the Holy Scriptures brought from his past.

He was born in 1887 of a poor Jewish family of Vitebsk in Russia. There are also several sculptures by the artist. Outside the library, is a large mosaïc which reflects in the swimming pool. It represents the Prophet Elijah, taken up to Heaven on a chariot of fire, surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac. You can also admire his gouaches, etchings, copperplate engravings, sketches and lithographs.

Located in Cimiez as well in the middle of a large field of olive trees, you will visit the Matisse museum.  Near the former Hôtel Régina where the painter once lived, it presents the steps in the Master’s creation, from his earliest paintings in 1890 to the gouache cutouts he made at the end of his life.
It presents the collection of paintings, drawings, engravings and ceramics by Henri Matisse. Almost the entire (57) sculptures of Matisse are to be found there ie the most complete public collections never put together.

2.  En route to St Paul (Fondation Maeght), Vence (Matisse Chapel) and Cagnes (Renoir house)

On this tour, you'll discover the 16th century walled city of St. Paul de Vence, built during the days of French King Francois I in the 16th century as a defence against Nice and the Dukes of Savoy.

The narrow roads are made for wandering and have not changed for centuries. You have to see the "Grande Fontaine" and the Gothic Church.  Today, the charming village is inhabited by painters and craftsmen.
You can visit the more than 70 art-galleries and 40 little shops. It has long been famous as a haven for artists, writers and movie stars. Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Yves Montand have all lived and created works there, while numerous European stars and starlets call it their home. However, its simple beauty and charm have not been detracted by its fame.

People come to pay homage at its majestic Gothic Church; its numerous side-streets are quiet and clean. Craftsmen, such as olive-wood carvers, rope makers, weavers and silk painters sit working on doorsteps or in little shops. Needless to say, the shopping is varied and it is not unusual to walk out unknowingly with an art piece that may one day become very valuable.

On a grassy hill just outside Saint-Paul is one the great modern art museums of the world: the Maeght Foundation with works by Calder, Miro, Giacometti, Braque - all great names of 20th century art.

For lunch, you need to experience one of the Cote d'Azur's most popular and authentic haunts which has attracted an interminable list of legendary names from the world of art, the cinema and indeed just about every other field you might choose to name. Yves Montand used to stay there and spend his days watching the men play boules in the square.

From the outside you would never know it was there. A really secret place with charming staff who never intrude, the house has a wonderful atmosphere - there are paintings on the wall donated by the famous artists who used to stay, such as Matisse and Picasso.
The terrace is just as magical as it always was, and the Colombe's simple, homely fare as welcome as that provided by any of the region's culinary wizards.

To make this excursion complete, you have to visit the Rosary Chapel entirely decorated by Matisse located in the charming vilage of Vence. The decoration itself is severe, black lines on white tiles that reminds one of a sketch. In the small adjoining gallery one can see the studies he made before the final work was finished.

Possibility to add: Fernand Léger in Biot as well as Picasso in Antibes and the newest Palais Masséna

Your local WATA contact :  VIP RIVIERA SERVICE