The nearly tropical climate, the azure waters, the indigo sky attract yachting lovers on every vacation and at every holiday, summer, Easter, Christmas, Carnival, All Saints' Days, the international exhibitions like MIPIM, the events like Grand Prix in Monaco! The white and hot-pinked colored villas with iron balconies, edging the blue horizon, the evening air perfumed with jasmine and mimosa, the parasol pines that silhouette against sunsets of ripe apricot and gold. Côte d'Azur seems to epitomize happiness, a state of being the world pursues with a vengeance and shimmer in her golden charm and elegance.

Côte d'Azur (or Azure Coast) history starts when ancient Greeks moved eastward from Marseille to market their goods to the natives. From the 18th-century English aristocrats who claimed it as one vast spa to the 19th-century Russian nobles who transformed Nice into a tropical St. Petersburg to the 20th-century American tycoons who cast themselves as romantic sheiks, the beckoning coast became a blank slate for their whims. Like the modern vacationers who followed, they all left their mark; villas, shrines, temples all to the sensual pleasures of the sun and sultry sea breezes. Artists, too, made the Côte d'Azur their own, as museum lovers who have studied the sunny legacy of Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and Chagall will attest. Today's visitors can enjoy all of it. Along with the Riviera's points of interest, the animated St-Tropez, the Belle Epoque aura of Cannes, the towns made famous by Picasso-Antibes, Vallauris, Mougins; the urban charms of Nice; and several spots where the per-capita population of billionaires must be among the highest on the planet: Cap d'Antibes, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and Monaco. The beauty of the Côte d'Azur coastline captures glamour. Beyond this, hidden in the hills, in low-lying mountains, nature lovers may discover the arriére-pays, the idyllic backcountry. Isolated, as the waterfront resorts are in the swim. Medieval stone villages on rocky hills, dozens of hill towns virtually untouched, are the remark of history in a modern life. Respect in tradition is obvious in daily routine.The slowly savored pastis (the anise-and-licorice-flavored spirit mixed slowly with water), the farmers' market (as if the ocean were a hundred miles away) is only a hint. A cruise from St-Tropez to the Italian Riviera is a seductive pleasure for yacht owners and charterers world wide, with great opportunities for excursions ashore.

Together with the Cote D'Azur in France, the Italian Riviera with famous Santa Margaretta, Porto Fino and so many picturesque ‘porto’ remains the number one in yachting preference. Elba, Maddalena islands, Sardinia are some so fashionable cosmopolitan places to visit. Historical ports, fascinating coastlines, blue waters, exceptional port of calls for excursions ashore in picturesque villages. Airports after disembarkation: in Naples, Olbia, Ajaccio, Calvi.