What to do in Hilltop Villages of the French Riviera

Matisse arrived on the Riviera for the light and stayed for almost four decades, and this day takes you through the corners of the coast that kept him there. With a private driver-guide, you'll start in the city where he lived and worked, at a museum that traces his style from early canvases to the cut-outs of his later years. Then it's up into the hills, through villages where painters and writers once gathered, finishing at a small chapel Matisse designed himself, right down to the priests' robes. Its walls are white tiles covered in simple black line drawings, and when the sun hits the stained glass, the floor fills with pools of lemon, bottle-green and ultramarine. Entry fees are covered. It is a quiet way to end the day, and a moving one.

Ever wanted a scent nobody else can buy? Here's your chance. In an hour or so with a professional perfumer, you'll work your way through a palette of high-quality raw ingredients, sniffing, blending and tweaking until your top, heart and base notes sit together just so (it's much harder than it sounds, and a lot more fun). Your perfumer explains how a fragrance is built as you go, so you'll leave with a sharper nose as well as a bottle of something that's entirely yours, plus a signed certificate to prove you made it. Everything happens at a table, so the workshop is fully accessible and easy to slot into a day on the coast. The best souvenir from the South of France is one you made yourself.

Charge your phone and clear some space on the camera roll. Your driver-guide heads along the stretch of the Riviera where the Alps drop straight into the Mediterranean, stopping at lookouts and hidden corners most visitors drive right past (some are a short scramble from the road, so leave the heels at the hotel). Expect clifftop villages with stone alleyways tumbling with bougainvillaea, a seaside town where the façades are painted in shades of ochre, lemon and terracotta, and cobbled lanes so high above the coast that the sea seems to go on forever. Break for lunch along the way, and bring someone you'd like in the photos. It's a romantic day out, and the views take care of themselves.

You'll spend this day on the Riviera following the painters, writers and film stars who fell for the hilltop villages of Provence, and in some cases never left. Your driver-guide leads you through ramparts built on royal orders, down lanes where the galleries almost outnumber the houses, and into a modern art collection set among pine trees and sculpture gardens, with big names from the 20th century on show. Stop for lunch wherever takes your fancy (it isn't included, so choose freely), then round off the day in another medieval village on a ridge, full of history and quiet squares. It's easy-going enough for children, and grown-ups will enjoy it just as much.

Leave the superyachts to the coast and head for the hills. Your own driver-guide takes you inland for a day in the Riviera's medieval villages: fortified towns on craggy clifftops, cobbled lanes barely wide enough for two, and tiny galleries and ateliers still carrying the artistic spirit that drew some of the 20th century's great painters here. Expect honey-coloured stone, ramparts with views over the rolling countryside and a pace that slows to a meander (sensible shoes a must). Along the way you'll stop for a long, lazy lunch somewhere local,