“Cannes is for living, Monte Carlo for gambling and Menton for dying.” At least that’s what the Riviera experts used to say in the last years of the 19th century. And that’s not changed since. Cannes is still busy living it up. If it’s Riviera chic you’re looking for, then head for Cannes, but you’ll discover a town with more ritzy restaurants than you’ll ever need. The circus of self promotion reaches a peak during the film festival, but off-season Cannes can be surprisingly low-key.

If you tire of the beaches, explore the Old Town (called Le Suquet) which clusters on a low hill. The must-do excursion from Cannes is the boat trip to the Îles de Lérins, two offshore islands which are both a haven of peace – the perfect cure for visitors who just cannot keep up with the frenetic pace of life in Cannes itself.

The main railway station in Cannes is a five-minute walk behind the main seafront promenade. The station wins no prizes for beauty, but it does have an excellent range of train services. There are several TGVs each day to Paris, all taking just over five hours for the journey, and regular services to Marseille where you can change for onward connections to Toulouse and Bordeaux. There are occasional international trains to Genoa and Milan, but many travellers opt to just take a local train to Nice, where the choice of onward services to Genoa and beyond is much better.

For those looking to make local excursions from Cannes, there’s a superb network of Riviera connections, including two trains per hour to Antibes, Nice, Menton, Monaco and the Italian border town of Ventimiglia. There is also a useful hourly train to the inland town of Grasse.