Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Saint-Paul-de-Vence is a walled hilltop village behind Nice, between Antibes and Grasse — one of the oldest towns on the Côte d’Azur and, since the 1920s, the one artists made their own.
Signac and Modigliani came first. Then Marc Chagall, who spent the last twenty years of his life here and is buried in the village cemetery. Painters who could not pay their bills at the inn on the square, La Colombe d’Or, settled them with canvases — which is how a village restaurant came to own one of the better private collections of twentieth-century art in France, still hanging on its walls.
Be warned about the crowds
This is one of the most visited villages in France, and in July and August the main street is shoulder to shoulder. The combination of celebrity history, genuine beauty and a location twenty minutes from the coast resorts guarantees it.
Go early or late. Before ten in the morning or after six in the evening the village is a different place — and in the low season it is close to empty. If your only option is a summer afternoon, expect to queue along the Rue Grande rather than walk it.
What to see
The ramparts and the old village
The walls were built for François I in the 1540s and survive almost entirely. You can walk the circuit in twenty minutes, and the views over the hills towards the sea are the reason to do it.
Inside, the village is a single main street with lanes off it, and houses from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nearly every ground floor is now a gallery or a workshop — some serious, some not.
Fondation Maeght
Ten minutes’ walk outside the walls, and for many visitors the real reason to come: a modern art museum built in the 1960s by the dealer Aimé Maeght, with a sculpture garden by Miró, a Giacometti courtyard and works by Braque, Calder and Chagall. It was designed as a building for the art rather than a building with art in it, and it still looks remarkable.
The church and the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs
The collegiate church holds a painting attributed to Tintoretto. The nearby chapel was decorated by Jean-Michel Folon in the 2000s — a modern interior in a medieval shell, and worth the few minutes.
Chagall’s grave
In the cemetery just outside the southern gate — a plain stone slab, usually with pebbles left on it by visitors, and a view over the valley that explains why he stayed.
Pétanque on the Place du Jeu de Boules
The square by the entrance gate, where the village plays and where Yves Montand famously did. It is not a performance for tourists; the games are real and the arguments are too.
Getting there
By bus is the easy way. Route 400 runs from Nice (Vauban) via Cagnes-sur-Mer to Saint-Paul and on to Vence — roughly an hour from Nice, and cheap. Buses are frequent but full in season.
By car, allow for the parking problem. The village is pedestrian and the car parks below it fill early; in summer expect to leave the car some way down the hill and walk up. See parking in France.
Nearest airport is Nice Côte d’Azur, about 40 minutes. There is no railway station — the nearest is Cagnes-sur-Mer on the coastal line, with the bus up from there.
What to eat
Prices inside the walls are what you would expect of a village this famous. La Colombe d’Or is an institution and charges like one — worth it for the art on the walls if you treat lunch as a museum ticket. The terraces just outside the gates are better value for the same view.
The cooking is Provençal: see Provençal cuisine.
Nearby
- Vence — the larger town 4 km up the road, with Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire, which he considered his masterpiece; see Vence
- Cagnes-sur-Mer — down at the coast, with Renoir’s house and the Grimaldi castle
- Grasse — the perfume town, half an hour west
- Antibes — the Picasso museum and the ramparts, 30 minutes
- Cannes and Èze — the coast either side
When to go
April to June and September to October: the light is best, the village is walkable and the Fondation Maeght is not queued. July and August are crowded to the point of spoiling it. Winter is quiet and many galleries close, but the walls and the views do not.
See when to visit Provence and what to do in Provence.
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