From the glamor of Cannes to artistic hilltop villages: Inside Provence – one of the world's most magical regions

There is suddenly some commotion on the beach. People wave their arms and shout as if they have seen something alarming in the water. Maybe a swimmer is in distress, even if the lifeguards don't seem concerned.

On closer inspection, the increasing swell is all smiles. Plus, there's plenty of jewelry on display, plunging necklines and expensive hairstyles – and that's just for the men.

This is a Cannes-style wedding reception, and the bride and groom are about to arrive on a sleek, polished speedboat. They're ready for a party.

On the Cote d'Azur it is 'business as usual', in this legendary, recession-proof honeypot. We're talking high-octane wealth, grandiose glamor and, if necessary, a salutary lesson that the gap between the super-rich and those who, as Teresa May once put it, are 'just about getting by' is still widening. has never been this big. .

I've always wanted to visit the Hotel Martinez, the oldest five-star hotel on La Croisette, where a sea view room starts from around £1,800, and the four-bedroom suite on the seventh floor, with a private terrace running the width of the entire building . costs £50,000 per night.

There are Ferraris on the forecourt, Damien Hirst art on the walls in the atrium (or hung from the ceiling) and much of the luggage coming and going smells like LA's Rodeo Drive.

The cantilevered staircase is a wonder. How it sustains itself is baffling, but it is here that the cinematic gods and goddesses practice walking down the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

I persuaded management to let our diverse group (ranging in age from two to 62) have lunch across the road at the hotel's beach club. Full disclosure – I'm not paying the full hit. If that were me, it would be £60-£90 a day for a sunbed (prices increase the closer you are to the sea) or £800 for a cabana on the pier, with a bottle of bubbly in it.

In Cannes, Mark dines at Hotel Martinez's 'wonderfully informal' beach club restaurant

And yet the beach club restaurant (“The best lunch of my life,” says one in our group) is wonderfully informal: light on pretension, heavy on irony, with the names of movie stars on the back of the director's style. chairs. Mine is from Grace Kelly and I'm standing next to Paul Newman and Yul Brynner.

The next day the combination couldn't be grimmer – though just as rewarding – as we take the 20-minute shuttle from the old port of Cannes to Saint Honorat, the smaller of the two Iles de Lerins.

No Ferraris here. There are actually no cars, although among the vines we see a tractor and trailer producing half-decent wines and helping to support the twenty Cistercian monks who live a life of solitude and prayer, and perhaps say a word on behalf of the hedonistic crowd back on the mainland.

There has been a monastery here since about 405, although the French Revolution disrupted things. This was until Saint Honorat was purchased in 1869 by the Bishop of Fréjus, who oversaw its rebirth.

Cool place: Marks stays at Villa Jasmina (photo) near the hilltop village of Opio

Mark enjoys a 'heavenly day out' on Ile Saint-Honorat (above)

It makes for a heavenly day out. There is no beach, but you just choose your spot and clamber over rocks into the water. Then treat yourself to a long, lazy lunch at Torraine restaurant – also owned by the monks.

Villa Jasmina, the home of our rented CV Villas, about 40 minutes inland near the hilltop village of Opio, is the color of honey and surrounded by cypress, eucalyptus, pine, olive and fir trees, all leading to the grand old oak on the terrace. Sitting underneath for dinner at the stone table is a pleasure.

There are three bedrooms in the main house, plus an annexe with two more. The pool is long and thin – and alarmed in case the little ones tumble into it.

It's the ideal base for exploring this gilded region of Provence, which has attracted the superstars of art over the years. They came (including Winston Churchill) and continue to come for the light – a brilliant, bright light, while in Tuscany it is softer, less sharp and more pink.

The municipality of St. Paul de Vence cherishes its artistic associations. Marc Chagall bought a house here in 1949. A Jew born in Belarus, he had been granted French citizenship in 1937, but was forced to flee German-occupied France during the war. He later became an honorary citizen of Vence.

Matisse, Picasso and Leger, among others, temporarily took up residence in this 16th century town, perched on a hill, with its only narrow main street, aptly called Rue Grande, where Parisian-style galleries like to walk in, enjoy one look at the prices and hurry.

The artsy crowd used to gather at the Colombe d'Or, at the entrance to the city. It was a simple inn at that time. Now it's a five-star hotel, with two burly security men in suits standing outside to keep people like me from popping in for a quick browse.

Mark travels to Grasse, the 'perfume capital of the world', where he is greeted by hundreds of pink umbrellas (pictured)

Valbonne is great too. Here it is the art of French life on display in a village built in 1199 next to the Abbey of Chalaisienne on a Roman, rectangular grid system. The heart of it is the Place des Arcades, a fantastic square with restaurants on three sides.

A man in a bright yellow shirt appears to be acting as maitre d' for rival establishments, but we later realize that three of them are owned and run by the same family. There are no cars here either – so kids run around while their parents tuck into escargots and steak tartare.

Then there is Grasse, the so-called 'perfume capital of the world'. When we arrive it is raining so hard that traffic comes to a standstill. The good news is that we are greeted by hundreds of pink umbrellas; the bad news is that they are all out of reach and hanging from wires attached to lamp posts.

The sophistication of the south of France is hard to beat, but what I also like is the way old men with faces like a map of the London Underground still sit for hours at cafe tables, smoking and, hallelujah, reading newspapers. In the evening they might head to the nearest dusty boules court and then back to the café for a pichet of red wine and a moan about President Macron.

But my god, the French can be surly. At one of our Carrefour supermarkets, I ask an employee as kindly as possible if she can show me the way to 'les oeufs' (eggs), whereupon, without looking up, she sticks out an aggressive finger and barks: 'au fin' [‘at the end’]. And their traffic behavior is terrible. Towards the end of the week we drop the game of I-Spy with the younger children and substitute Spot The Smile as we drive around and wave in appreciation when, in the rarest of cases, we are given priority. We notice that they are rarely answered.

The French can be combative, irritable and aloof. They are our closest neighbors and yet forever far away. But to have this fascinating, furious and captivating country on our doorstep is one of our great privileges.