When to visit the French Riviera: month by month

The towns wake up in April. Market stalls come back out, terraces fill at lunch, and hotel prices sit 30 to 40 percent below summer rates on the same rooms. The sea is still at 15 to 17 °C, so swimming is for the brave, but the coastal paths — the Cap d'Antibes circuit, the Nietzsche path below Èze — are at their best: walked in a t-shirt, not packed.

One caution: May has two busy spells. The Cannes film festival in the second half of the month fills Cannes itself and pushes prices up the whole coast for a week. The Monaco Grand Prix does the same to the eastern end. Outside those two weeks, May is the connoisseur's month.

If you asked us to pick one, it is June. The sea has warmed to a swimmable 20 to 22 °C. The summer crowds have not arrived — school holidays start late in most of Europe, and the coast only tightens in the second half of July. Days are long: it stays light past 21:00, so a beach afternoon and an old-town evening both fit in one day.

Prices sit below July on comparable rooms. Everything is open, but nothing is yet a queue.

This is the Riviera at full volume. The sea is 23 to 25 °C and warm well into the evening. Beaches, trains and old towns all carry the same crowd, so the plan changes rather than the destination: book beach clubs and restaurants ahead, take the 08:30 train rather than the 11:00 one, and swim early or late rather than at noon.

August in particular is when France itself is on holiday. If July or August is when you can come, come — but book accommodation early and expect peak prices on the seafront. A hotel one street back from the water costs noticeably less than one facing it.

September might be the better version of June. The sea holds its summer warmth, at 22 °C or more through the month, while the crowds go home. Restaurant tables free up, the ferries to the Îles de Lérins run on, and the vineyards around Saint-Tropez and Aix-en-Provence are harvesting.

October cools towards 20 °C on land and 19 to 20 °C at sea. Early October still swims. Late October is for walks, markets and museums, with the first autumn rains usually arriving mid-month.

Winter on the coast is real winter, only gentle: 12 to 15 °C on a good January day, colder in the back country. The sea is 13 to 14 °C, which is a season for walking and eating, not for swimming. Beach days leave the plan and markets, painters' museums and long lunches replace them.

What you get in exchange: rooms at half their summer rate, towns that belong to their residents again, and light that photographers cross the country for. Menton's lemon festival fills February. If your trip is about towns and food rather than beaches, this is a legitimate season, not a compromise.