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Cecile Narbeth reveals where to experience the glamour of this bygone era on the French Riviera
If the Brussels Art Nouveau season gave you a taste for Belle Epoque style, the Côte d’Azur will delight you further with its Style 1900 splendours recently scrubbed and refurbished by a French initiative, bringing sumptuous palaces and cosy bars, luscious shops and luxurious villas to your exacting eye. Touring Nice, Menton, Cannes and Hyères we tailored a program fit for a modern day Gatsby.
Rent a Hispano-Suiza from Monsieur Guillaume at the Musée de l’Automobile (tel: +33 (0)4 93 69 27
80) and be chauffered from the airport to Nice Centre. Gaze at the stuccoed facades along the Boulevard Victor Hugo and side streets in Les Musiciens quarter – Villa Benaud rue Verdi, Villa Rosalia rue Berlioz – until you reach the Hôtel Atlantic at no 12. Order a GinRickey cocktail (50ml gin, 12.5ml limejuice, 12.5ml sugar syrup) mixed by long-serving barman Yves in the cosy bar. Erected in 1913 by local architect Charles Dalmas, the Atlantic foyer displays the original and delicate verrière (glass roof) leading to the Belle Epoque Salons where today’s hotel residents enjoy breakfast in the morning sunshine. The neo-classical façade is clearly inspired by the work of Baron Haussman in Paris and the hotel is a bright example of the eclectic architecture much loved by the aristocrats and wealthy bourgeoisie who spent the winter months in Nice from 1861 onwards.
The annual influx of Russian and British foreigners brought excitement and prosperity to the city. When Queen Victoria stayed at the Excelsior Regina Palace (no 71 Boulevard Regina) in Cimiez for the third consecutive year in March 1897, the local (and republican) population came in droves, waving flags whilst children threw flowers in her path. A separate hotel wing awaited Her Majesty, fitted with the latest mod-cons: internal lift, bathrooms with hot and cold taps and bow windows in le style anglais.
Converted into private apartments between the wars, the Regina is today one of several Belle Epoque buildings included in a new Cimiez guided tour led by Le Service du Patrimoine (tel: +33 (0)4 92 00 41 90) in English and French. In 2006 a tour of Art Deco Nice will also lead you to the revamped façade of the Palais de La Mediterranée on Promenade des Anglais. It’s worth noting that spring 2007 sees the reopening of a refurbished Musée Masséna, spanning 1792-1939, but giving the lion’s share to Belle Epoque Nice.
Shopping for nostalgia in Nice should start at Ombrelles (no 17 Rue de la Gaze at the stuccoed facades along the Boulevard Victor Hugo and side streets in Les Musiciens quarter Prefecture, Vieux Nice, tel: +33 (0)4 93 80 33 13, www.maison-bestagno.fr.st) a charming shop which opened in 1850 stocking walking sticks and parasols. Run by Mr Bestagno, its décor has barely changed since its inception and the fashion for these items is as alive as ever. From March the new summer collection will be in store with 1900-style ombrelles on sale from €50 a piece. There are also antique walking sticks, ask Mr Bestagno for the writer stick, which unscrews to reveal ink pot and nib, or the canne érotique if you dare…
Round the corner visit Confiserie Auer (no 7 rue St Francois de Paule, Vieux Nice, tel: +33 (0)4 93 85 77 98) for traditional sweets displayed in a glorious Belle Epoque décor. Then browse the antique shops lining nearby rue Ségurane for Art Nouveau and Deco pieces. Affordable reproduction Art Nouveau and Deco posters are on sale at the Musée Jules Chéret shop (33 Avenue des Baumettes, Nice, tel: +33
(0)4 92 15 28 28). Originally a villa built in 1878 for a Ukrainian princess, the museum now shows the work of this influential French poster designer and lithographer working in the fluid Art Nouveau style from the 1870s, together with contemporaries such as Rodin, Manet and Bonnard.
Head to the garden of Val Rahmeh in Menton and enjoy one of the Belle Epoque favourite pastimes: a stroll through exotic gardens.
Thanks to its dynamic curator, themed garden tours are now available in French and English. Voyage sous les Tropiques (Tropical visit) – focuses on tropical plants, including Sophora toromiro, a leguminous plant from Easter Island. Not to be missed is the Visite d’un lieu de Mémoire tour with head gardener Hubert Argento who brings Val Rahmeh history to life. Hubert Argento grew up at Val Rahmeh, when Lady Campbell owned the gardens, she was one of the last great 1920s ‘extravagant’ ladies who lived on the Riviera, and he has many anecdotes about people’s lifestyles in the Belle Epoque era. For the romantically inclined, the novelists’ garden of Fontana Rosa, created by Spanish writer Blasco Ibáñez in 1922, carries the scars of its tormented history while displaying the story of Don Quixote inspired by Cervantes in ceramic tiles as a modern day cartoon.
Cannes is the Belle Epoque English Town par excellence, especially Boulevard Carnot and its side-streets, a quarter near the railway station that was built by Crédit Lyonnais in 1881-82. Measuring 2.6km long and 26m wide, it was reportedly built in 18 months by 5,000 people working under that new late 19th-century invention: electric light.
Linking Le Cannet village to the north, to seaside Cannes to the South, the Carnot quarter attracted the Gotha of the time who had villas and gardens built by architects Henri Stoeklin and Louis Cauvin. Their facades display Art Nouveau lines, from Boulevard Carnot itself (villas Les Buissonnets, Les Ramiers) to Rue du 11 Novembre (apartment buildings Les Grappes d’Or, L’Armitelle) and rues Cavasse and Sardou (villas Le Nid, Cantegril).
View these gems while you explore the Carnot neighbourhood on foot with the assistance of the free Guide Le Passe Retrouvé. This guide was conceived by Association Résidence Carnot, a local association established in 2001 by residents alarmed at the pace of post-war demolition of their Belle Epoque heritage. Little has changed since 12 April 1902, when a 10km per hour speed limit was imposed on reckless automobiles tearing down the Boulevard Carnot.
As for shopping, there are some thriving stores. The large emporium Poupette on Boulevard d’Alsace has been selling upmarket children’s clothes since 1930. Just streets away, Spurway, on rue Marius Anne, sells plant-based cosmetics and scents in its original décor. Don’t miss the bookshop Librairie Rossignol, off rue d’Antibes, a source of prints and books, and jewellery store Joaillerie Siegl, where you can admire original jewels under the gaze of the 1880 grandfather portrait!
Conclude your journey time in Hyères, where you can place a bet at the Roulette française or anglaise in the 1903 Casino des Palmiers. Long before the development of Cannes and Nice, Hyères was the most famous Riviera winter resort of the mid-19th century, with Queen Victoria staying at the Hotel d’Albion for eight weeks in 1892. The city architecture encapsulates the Belle Epoque and Art Deco eras. For a guided tour of the former, ask the Maison du Tourisme (tel: +33 (0)4 94 01 84 30) for a Hyères 1900 circuit, which takes you to the original villas in the city, or further out to Costebelle.
The most international vestige of the Deco period is the Villa Noailles, a private residence built in the Cubic style by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens in the mid 1920s for art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles. Originally conceived as une petite maison intéressante à habiter (an exciting house to live in), the villa was used by many artists supported by the Noailles. Now property of the City of Hyères, the Villa has become a centre for Contemporary Arts and will house this year’s Festival de la Mode, 28 April-1 May, and also exhibitions, including the work of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal in Spring 2006, architects of the remodelled Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris.
If in Hyères 20-21 May, do not miss Giens 1900 when the whole peninsula becomes a Belle Epoque town. Locals don period costumes, vintage cars take to the streets, dancers quadrille, polka and waltz outdoors whilst the local theatre group revives turn-of-the-century songs and cabaret. As Jay Gatsby would say: Bon Voyage, old sport!
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