Provenza Gran Tour

Nice opens onto the Mediterranean with the grace of a city that knows it is beautiful and makes no secret of it: the Promenade des Anglais, Europe's most celebrated seafront, stretches for seven kilometres between cliff and the grey-gold sand of the Baie des Anges, its Belle Époque palaces reflecting the light of the sea. Founded by the Greeks and for centuries under the sovereignty of the Duchy of Savoy, Nice became part of France only in 1860, and this dual Franco-Italian identity still resonates in the streets of the Vieux-Nice: ochre and Pompeii-red façades, stalls selling socca (the chickpea flatbread eaten burning-hot from a paper cone), and the Cours Saleya markets overflowing with flowers and olives. The Vieux-Nice is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its southern Baroque architecture: the Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate, eighteenth-century palaces with jasmine-scented courtyards, churches adorned with gilded stucco. Above it climbs the Colline du Château, where a panoramic park offers the most breathtaking view of the city and port. The old harbour itself is a lively corner of quayside restaurants and fishermen unloading their nets at dawn. Nice is also a city of museums. The Musée Matisse, in a seventeenth-century villa amid the splendid Villa des Arènes, celebrates the painter who chose Nice as his permanent home; the Musée National Marc Chagall holds the artist's largest public collection. The Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain displays Warhol, Lichtenstein and the rich School of Nice movement. Strolling through Cimiez, the residential inland quarter, one encounters the Roman ruins of the Arènes and a Franciscan monastery surrounded by rose gardens. Gastronomically, the city is a gateway between Provence and Liguria: salade niçoise with tuna, eggs, anchovies and black olives; pan bagnat; ratatouille perfumed with thyme and basil; petits farcis of courgette and tomato — dishes that speak of kitchen gardens and sunlight. The Cours Saleya morning market, with its Grasse roses, crystallised violets and mounds of coloured spices, is a feast for all the senses. In the evening, bars and brasseries come alive along the Promenade and in the narrow lanes of the Vieux-Nice well into the night, while the Mediterranean continues to murmur its eternal chord. Turquoise waters and sheer limestone walls: the Parc Naturel Régional du Verdon is one of France's most spectacular natural territories, dominated by the Verdon canyon and the Lac de Sainte-Croix. Rock climbing, trekking, kayaking and paragliding alternate through the seasons, with views over Europe's deepest gorges. Moustiers-Sainte-Marie and Castellane are the park's living centres. A destination for those who love nature on a grand scale.

Avignon still bears in its stone the memory of when it was the capital of Christendom: from 1309 to 1377 it was here that the popes established their court, and the Palais des Papes — the largest Gothic building in Europe — still dominates the city with its imposing mass, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the Pont Saint-Bénézet (the famous «bridge of Avignon» of the popular song, broken off midway across the Rhône). Inside the palace, the frescoed Chambre du Cerf and the Grande Chapelle convey the grandeur of that pontifical court. The intra-muros city is a labyrinth of squares, lanes and Renaissance palaces animated by festivals throughout the year — above all the Festival d'Avignon in July, which transforms every courtyard and square into a stage. The Villeneuve-lès-Avignon quarter on the opposite bank offers a memorable panorama of the city. The surrounding countryside produces Châteauneuf-du-Pape, one of Provence's most celebrated red wines.

Arles carries two thousand years of history in its stone body: the city was the Rome of Gaul, a river port and administrative capital of the Western Empire, and its Roman monuments — the amphitheatre (Les Arènes), the ancient theatre, the Alyscamps (the early Christian necropolis) — are listed as UNESCO sites alongside the other Romanesque monuments of Provence. But Arles is also the city of Van Gogh: he spent a year here between 1888 and 1889, painting «The Bedroom», «The Night Café» and dozens of other masterpieces. His haunts are marked by panels reproducing the paintings; the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles exhibits contemporary artists in dialogue with the master. Every July, the Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles transforms the city into a vast open-air museum. Provençal cuisine here is elemental: Crau lamb, tapenade, fleur de sel from the Camargue.

Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is the emblematic village of the Camargue, set between the lagoon and the Mediterranean in a landscape of pink flamingos, white horses and black bulls. The ninth-century Romanesque church, fortress and place of worship in one, presides over the white village with its tower that once served as a lighthouse. Every May, Roma people from across Europe converge here for the pilgrimage in honour of Saint Sara, patron of the Romani people. The manades — traditional farms — offer horse rides through reedbeds and glittering waterways. Les Saintes-Maries is a place suspended between the sacred and the wild, where Provence meets the African plain.

Aix-en-Provence is the city of Cézanne and the Cours Mirabeau: the long plane-tree-lined avenue crossing the centre, flanked by seventeenth-century fountains and historic cafés such as Les Deux Garçons, is one of the most elegant thoroughfares in Provence. Founded by the Romans as Aquae Sextiae, it preserves an old centre of airy squares, hôtels particuliers with sculpted doorways and shops selling calissons — the city's characteristic almond sweet. The Atelier de Cézanne, on the Lauves hill, remains almost untouched with the master's brushes, jugs and dried fruit; the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which he painted obsessively, is visible on the horizon from many points in the city. The Richelme square market, every morning, offers olives in every variety, herbes de Provence and goat's cheeses. A mood of serene refinement pervades Aix: a place where beauty is at home, and the door is always open.

Marseille is the oldest city in France — founded by Greek Phocaeans in 600 BC — and its most cosmopolitan: the Vieux-Port, where fishermen unload their catch at dawn while bistros prepare bouillabaisse, is the gravitational centre around which a city of over three hundred thousand different stories revolves. The Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, the «Bonne Mère» watching over the city from atop its gilded rock, is visible from the harbour, the beaches and the hinterland. The Panier quarter, the oldest, is a labyrinth of staircases, colourful lanes and murals; the MuCEM — Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée — is one of France's most innovative museums, its perforated concrete lattice extending over the sea at Fort Saint-Jean. The Calanques, the white limestone coves opening to the east of the city (a National Park), are reachable by boat or on foot and offer crystalline turquoise waters. Raw, generous, unrepeatable: Marseille is not a city one half-loves.