It was writer Stephen Liégeard who coined the term Côte d'Azur in his 1887 book La Côte d'Azur ("Azure Coast”), evocatively describing the French Mediterranean shore from Marseille to the Italian border as a "coast of light, of warm breezes, and mysteriously balmy forests."
The name helped to propel the coastline, which we also now know as the French Riviera, onto the global tourist trail.
