The grand palace on the Côte D'Azur is a pristine white mansion on the tip of the Cap-Ferrat peninsula set amidst 17 acres of lushly landscaped gardens with panoramic views of the Mediterranean.

It has been a legendary retreat for aristocrats, film stars, politicians, artists and writers for over a century, celebrated for world-class cuisine and unique luxury and elegance. Illustrious guests have included the novelist Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Aristotle Onassis, Picasso, David Niven, Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney, that tradition continues to this day with an elite international guest list.

The grand palace on the Côte D'Azur is a pristine white mansion on the tip of the Cap-Ferrat peninsula set amidst 17 acres of lushly landscaped gardens with panoramic views of the Mediterranean.

It has been a legendary retreat for aristocrats, film stars, politicians, artists and writers for over a century, celebrated for world-class cuisine and unique luxury and elegance. Illustrious guests have included the novelist Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Aristotle Onassis, Picasso, David Niven, Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney, that tradition continues to this day with an elite international guest list.

Think it’s difficult finding a Father’s Day present for the man in your life? Try being Angelina Jolie.

”Brad is the hardest person to shop for,” she says of her partner, Brad Pitt, while checking out a window display of Corum watches at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat in the south of France. ”He has impeccable design taste. And whenever he sees something he likes, he buys it for himself.” Pitt’s most recent gift to Jolie — the gun-charm necklace she wore to her EW photo shoot — is also a tough act to follow.

”Mad, our 6-year-old, draws lots of war scenarios,” she explains. ”He’s all into war and guns. So for Mother’s Day he drew a machine gun, and Brad had it made into a necklace, which is really sweet. It’s really cute. I think it’s really good!”

Cap-Ferrat is a discreet sideshow to the more blatant excesses of the French Riviera. Since the turn of the 20th century, it has experienced several waves of "colonization," from itinerant European aristocrats to newly minted millionaires. Today, the cape is more diverse than ever: Wealthy Russians and Middle Easterners mingle with families who have vacationed there for decades.

But in addition to enjoying the seaside, be sure to tour architectural sites such as the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. The Hispano-Mauresque masterpiece is the most expressive example of late-19th-century grandeur on the cape. It was inhabited by Baroness Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, who collected exceptional 18th-century furniture. The villa grounds are home to seven gardens, each designed in a distinct style: French traditional, Florentine, Spanish, exotic, lapidary, Japanese, and Provençal (4-93-01-33-09).

The country code for France is 33. Prices quoted are for August 2008, the upcoming high season.

Is Cap-Ferrat very French, even for all the generations of foreigners who've declared it theirs? There are still some heirs of the nineteenth-century grande bourgeoisie holding out among the villas that their forefathers built: the Bleriot family, who once manufactured airplanes, and the Marnier-Lapostelles, whose Grand Marnier was a must ingredient for now quaint crêpes suzette (the Marnier-Lapostelles own the villa Les Cèdres, once the property of Léopold II). The cape has always drawn interesting foreigners because it is one of those places where the hands of man and of nature have worked wonderful complicity. Leben wie der Herrgott in Frankreich is what the Germans say to describe the great life: "to live like God himself in France." The Riviera as a whole, meanwhile, has become what Graham Greene, who spent his last years near Nice, once said of Bruges: "a much trafficked jewel." Much trafficked in both senses of the verb. There's indeed another French word, betonné, which means cemented, and it's the term for the overbuilding all along the Côte d'Azur, including the stretch between Nice and the Italian border that is, technically, what we call the Riviera.