France

The destination

The Côte d'Azur invented the yacht charter as we know it, and a century on it remains the standard against which everything else is measured. The geography is uniquely generous: Monaco, Antibes, Cannes and St-Tropez sit within a single day's cruise of one another, threaded with quieter pleasures - lunch at Club 55, a swim off the Lérins Islands, an evening at anchor beneath the Estérel's red cliffs. This is a destination of effortless logistics and serious glamour, where the world's finest yachts gather and the service culture has been refined over generations. Come in May for the Grand Prix and the Film Festival, or in September when the crowds thin and the sea is at its warmest. However many times you have done the Riviera, it has a way of feeling like the first.