Medieval hilltop village where Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall came to paint — and stayed
Saint-Paul-de-Vence is the most art-saturated village in France — a medieval walled hilltop commune above the Côte d'Azur that attracted Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, and Léger from the 1920s onward. Many of them stayed at the Auberge de la Colombe d'Or, still open today, whose walls are covered in original works given by artists in lieu of payment. The Fondation Maeght, just outside the village, is one of the finest museums of modern art in Europe, set in a Catalan-style building by Josep Lluís Sert.
The village was fortified by Francis I in the 16th century to defend against Savoyard incursion. Its artistic colonization began with Chaïm Soutine in the early 1920s and accelerated when Picasso came in 1937 — he brought with him Prévert, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and much of Paris's creative world. Marc Chagall lived in the village for the last 20 years of his life and is buried in its cemetery alongside his wife. The village's tiny medieval lanes hold galleries every few metres; commerce is overwhelmingly art.