We watched Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, recently. Hitchcock’s delightfully light and masterful work set in Nice, France, made me long to return to that stretch of the Cote d’Azure, or French Riviera. What a lovely place to visit. To see the mingling of Roman aqueducts and Roman roads with a truly different side of France than most tourists ever see from Paris and northern France.

Nice is almost like a different country from the rest of France, because until 1860, Savoy and its principal city, Nice, were an independent Dutchy. Nice looks and feels more like Genoa or Sanremo than it does Paris or even Marseilles. Yet it is decidedly French.

But in a very different way culturally than Paris. When you visit Paris and check into your hotel, the clerk is more likely to tell you you’re speaking incorrectly than to recognize you for trying to speak French at all. On the Riviera, the people are glad you’re making any attempt, and if they don’t understand you they’ll be happy to switch to English to help you out.

In and around Nice you’ll find a bustling shopping district, antique and flower market, gorgeous stand of white beach, beautiful Cathedral and numerous ancient churches, and a warren of narrow old streets to explore. If you’re walking up the hilltop to the park in the middle of the city near noon, the daily cannon firing to mark the mid-day might make you jump out of your socks, but the men yelling “Vive la France!” will calm you right down and make you chuckle.

In the Maritime Alps, the mountains which come down to the coast much like the mountains along Malibu and Santa Barbara, there are countless mountaintop medieval villages just waiting to be explored. Some, like Cagnes sur Mer and St Paul and Vence are close by and accessible by local bus on the hour. Others, like Digne, can be reached by local trains that service these small hamlets.

Monaco is close by and very much worth a day trip. The train station is inside the mountain, and when you walk out you see the ancient Roman aqueduct high above you that carried water across an empire. And you marvel at how engineers 2000 years ago tunneled through rock and bridged a valley all at a very slight but constant slope, enough to carry water under the weight of gravity. And that is all before you even cross the street and gaze with dropped jaw at the yachts in the Monaco harbor. While in Monaco, visit both the botanical garden and the old town above the harbor. If you go for the Grand Prix, I recommend getting tickets for the qualification day. Much more interesting than the actual race. Much less crowded and much less expensive. Go to the local bar in Nice to watch the actual race, which is won on qualifying day by your position in the field.

While there are a lot of sights to see, great local restaurants to eat at, you’d miss the evening of a lifetime if you didn’t go to the Place du Chateau (the castle square) in the Haute de Cagnes (above Cagnes sur Mer) to watch the village men play boule while drinking your local wine (Vin du Pays du Var) and having a pizza Napolitain avec plus d’anchois.

Enjoy Nice and say Bonjour to Monsieur Gerard for me.