Riviera

Riviera comes from the Genoese word for shoreline (rivêa) and originally referred to the Ligurian coast between Genoa and the French border. Today the label has spread: French Riviera (Côte d'Azur), Italian Riviera (Levante and Ponente around Portofino and Sanremo), Riviera Maya (Mexico), Turkish Riviera. For travelers, the word still signals aristocratic Belle Époque resort culture: this is where the modern seaside palace hotel was invented, with the Splendido of Portofino (1901), Royal Hôtel Sanremo (1872), Le Negresco (1913) and the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo (1864) setting the template that the rest of the luxury hotel world copied.