03 November 2011

Riviera Palace - the Old Postcards


These are the signs that great you as you approach the Riviera Palace and it's good to be reminded of how it looked when it was first built at the turn of the last century. You can see the posts and chains I showed yesterday in the lower half of the photo below.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 1914-18 war, the French Riviera was where artists and writers and members of the European aristocracy and bourgeoisie spent their winters, hence the building of this Belle Epoque hotel.

In 1898, when Camile Blanc was president of the SBM and future Mayor of Beausoleil, he founded the Real Estate Company of Monte Carlo Superior. He also owned the train company and the mythic Orient Express. He built a funicular railway that ran from the Cremaillère, way down the hillside in Monaco, to the Riviera Palace Railway Station.

5 comments:

Jameson said...

Yay! I love this kind of feature on historical buildings and the way you present things. Thank you!

Pierre BOYER said...

Great old pictures...

Pierre

Unknown said...

Nice to see old photos taken years ago. What you need to do is stand in the same place and do a 'now' shot so we can see the differences

Catherine said...

I would love to have witnessed the Riviera in its Belle Epoque heyday amongst all those writers and artists - do you know of any really good books on the subject??

Leif Hagen said...

Ah, yes, postcards! I'd love a postcard from Monaco!
bon weekend, Jilly

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