A rose-coloured Belle Epoque palace with nine themed gardens above two bays, the Saint-Hospice coastal path and the harbour of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat — how to plan the visit and get there without parking problems.
Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild bought this ridge of rock in 1905 and spent seven years turning it into a Venetian-inspired palace. The ground floor is kept as she lived in it — Renaissance columns, Savonnerie carpets, Sèvres porcelain, Tiepolo ceilings and furniture that belonged to Marie-Antoinette — while the upper floor holds her collections of Chinese lacquer, Impressionist paintings and rare drawings. She left the villa to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1934, which is why the ensemble survives complete.
The grounds are laid out like the deck of a ship, with a French garden running down to a Temple of Love and eight more around it: Spanish, Florentine, stone, Japanese, exotic, Provençal, a rose garden and a lapidary garden. Every twenty minutes the fountains of the main basin play to music. Late March to early June is the peak of the flowering, and the rose garden peaks again in September.
The village is a working harbour with terraces facing the fishing boats. Plage de Paloma and Plage de Passable are the two accessible beaches, both with restaurants that need booking in summer. The sentier du littoral runs almost the whole way round the peninsula: the full circuit is about 11 kilometres and three hours, while the short Pointe Saint-Hospice loop from Paloma takes under an hour.
Cap Ferrat is fifteen minutes from Nice Airport by road, but parking at the villa is limited and the peninsula's narrow lanes fill quickly in season. A Mira Azur chauffeur drops you at the villa gates and waits or returns at an agreed time, so the visit can be combined with Villefranche, Èze or lunch in Beaulieu — or built into a full-day private tour of the Riviera.
+33 6 89 52 72 86 · contact@miraazur.com