Riviera: The Birthplace of Pleasant Living and Slow Living Lifestyle

Riviera means a place where life ticks to a different rhythm, undisturbed far from both crowds and city noise. While historically it referred to a small seaside town stretching along the coast, where people would seasonally come to refresh body and mind, today the riviera can become home to those who value nature, peace, and personal space.

Boring sand and empty fields?

The word riviera comes from Italian and means a long sandy coastline. The well-known rivieras are the French Riviera, also called the Côte d'Azur, located in southern France, and the Italian Riviera, situated on Italy's northwestern coast. In today's world, and already a century ago, both were known as a piece of lost paradise.

At the beginning of the last century, it was customary for society's elite to spend all their longer vacations on the riviera, and some would even travel across the ocean for this. The riviera lifestyle was especially valued among creative people, who sought a peaceful and inspiring place where pen and paintbrush could fly undisturbed. The most famous residents of the French Riviera at that time were artists Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and Edvard Munch.

The French Riviera was also briefly home to American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote his most famous works "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender Is the Night" in a coastal town there. The same coastline was also enjoyed by Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, and Louisa May Alcott, whose works contain here and there references to the enchanting riviera life.

The Italian Riviera was a favorite resort for Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, Lord Byron, and later Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Ava Gardner. It is hardly a coincidence that artists, writers, musicians, and actors from all over the world have chosen one riviera or another as their vacation spot throughout history. This reflects mankind's eternal longing for a lifestyle that allows them to be themselves and do what their heart desires.

Today, both rivieras have become tourists' favorite destinations, and precisely because of the place's original peaceful, secluded, and somewhat mystical and otherworldly charm.

Don't forget to live

Italians place slow living at the center of life – they even have their own term for it: dolce far niente, which means "sweet idleness". Alongside a fast pace of life, one might feel that inactivity is sinful and that to keep up with the rest of the world, you must always be busy with something. But in this way, rest can be forgotten and the beauty of life—that which is truly important—can go unnoticed.