Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc

A galaxy of stars made the pilgrimage

The roll-call reads like a casting sheet for the entire golden age: Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Taylor and Burton, and the Kennedys, to name a comfortable fraction. Rita Hayworth and Ali Khan went on a date here. Annabella and her husband, the American leading man Tyrone Power, were regular guests who spent many carefree days by the pool. F. Scott Fitzgerald used the hotel for inspiration in his final novel, Tender Is the Night — though the real credit belongs to Gerald and Sara Murphy, the glamorous American expats who once rented the entire hotel for a summer in the 1920s and brought half of the Lost Generation with them. Marlene Dietrich was a regular, and Garbo sunbathed by the pool.

The most exclusive address on the coast

The Eden-Roc remains the hotel of choice for stars attending the Cannes Film Festival, and during the festival each May it becomes the most exclusive address on the coast. Studio executives hold meetings by the pool. Deals worth hundreds of millions are closed over lunch on the terrace. The Eden-Roc restaurant, on the rocks at the water's edge, is one of the most spectacular dining settings in France. The hotel has maintained a steadfast policy of not accepting credit cards — cash or bank transfer only — which, depending on your perspective, is either charmingly old-fashioned or magnificently inconvenient. It didn't accept cards until 2006 and didn't install televisions until 2012, which tells you everything you need to know about its attitude toward modernity.

" Where the crème de la crème from the worlds of politics, culture, and royalty have mingled since the 1870s — and still do.