After a long trip last week back from Asia, there was nothing better than to take a quick hop across the port on the electric Boat Bus, with some stunning sunset views of the buildings of Monaco. It was a great feeling and surprisingly peaceful to glide silently over the calm waters of the Mediterranean after the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
When I had just arrived in Monaco as a kid, this kind of idyllic scene really epitomised the style and luxury of the French Riviera: the secluded private villa that takes up a prime part of the coastline and has a wonderful pool and stunning sea views. It just so happens that I stumbled across this lovely view on the way back from Beaulieu to Monaco and that this isn’t a private villa but a 5* boutique hotel called the Hotel du Cap Estel which stands on the eponymous cape on the eastern side of the Bay of Eze before Cap d’Ail. I’d never actually seen this place as it’s tucked away from the main road and even though it’s currently closed for the winter season, it looks absolutely idyllic – definitely somewhere to try out for a drink or lunch when the warm weather kicks off 😉
It’s sometimes important to take the higher ground! This is the high altitude view I’ll be enjoying quite a lot of over the next 6 weeks, with 12 flights lined up across 3 trips and 5 countries for various business and leisure trips, the first stop being Hong Kong… This particular lovely sky was observed last month just above the French Riviera when landing on the Lufthansa flight from Munich, the second leg of my trip back from Sofia in Bulgaria.
Pure serenity in the Mediterranean air on a blissful evening! Driving back home after a perfect afternoon this weekend in Villefranche, Cap Ferrat and Beaulieu, I stopped over on the quiet road at the entrance of the Cap Estel Hotel and snapped this lovely sunset looking back over Cap Ferrat and Cap Roux in the foreground. Wishing everyone an amazing week!
Palm trees, the Mediterranean Sea and the sky on fire… Another spectacular winter sunset over the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, captured last month just in front of the Meridien hotel, the clouds were particularly stunning that evening and the atmosphere was absolutely magical. The weather’s already getting warmer and the days longer, spring will soon be with us… Have a great week!
Flashback to my unforgettable Balkan road trip of August 2015 and the view from the Sky Bar in the weird and wonderful capital of Albania that looks like pretty much nowhere else in the region or the world, total culture shock! In order to get to grips with this city, we decided to have a drink at the highest bar of the city and were greeted with this stunning panoramic view at sunset before going for a delicious typical dinner at a restaurant called Oda. By the way, if you’re wondering why I’m posting random pics from around the world on the French Riviera Blog, I’m currently preparing a new sister blog, the World Traveller Blog, which will relate some of my global travel experiences in a similar style and so you can consider these as a kind of trailer 😉
Beautiful February sunset captured in Monaco! One of the unfortunate particularities here is that you never actually see the sun set as the Principality faces east towards the sea and the sun drops down in the evening behind the 550m wall of the Tête de Chien mountain located to the west. However there are certain evenings, especially in winter, where the cloud patterns over the Italian mountains capture the final rays of the setting sun and set the sky on fire in a truly splendid manner – this is a perfect example and great to reminisce over as I fly towards Sofia in Bulgaria, my home for the next 5 days (perhaps some of the next daily pictures will come from there!).
The start of 2017 hasn’t been wonderful in terms of weather on the French Riviera, at least from what I’ve been told as I’ve been travelling for 5 consecutive weeks so far for work to some much colder parts of Europe, namely Paris, Vienna, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Cologne. However, this weekend was hopefully a sign of better times and after a lovely day yesterday in Nice (see the carnival pictures and video I shared on the French Riviera Blog Facebook page), I decided to enjoy the afternoon with a very pleasant 45 minute run around some of the major sights on the western part of Monaco and therefore enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
I figured, in the spirit of this blog, that it would be nice to share the pictures as it’s a really nice tour that takes in plenty of the most beautiful views of the Principality, just be warned that it does go uphill and downhill a lot so I did this at a very slow pace given my appalling fitness condition!
Enjoy the photos! Next week if the weather is still decent, I might go and check out the last weekend of the Fête des Citrons in Menton, if so I’ll share my experiences soon!
THE FRENCH RIVIERA BLOG BY KEVIN HIN 