The Riviera is the perfect place for wellness retreats. It offers clean air, abundant sunshine, a healthy and delicious cuisine based on herbs, seafood and vegetables, and plenty of serene hilltop spaces with commanding views. There is a long history of Europe's city dwellers escaping to the Riviera for wellbeing and peace of mind - indeed, doctors in Victorian London used to recommend wintering in the Riviera to their patients!
Perhaps the best reason to hold a wellness retreat in the Riviera is its extraordinarily healthy, delicious cuisine. Too often, people think of healthy living, "detoxing", as an exercise in denying themselves the pleasures of life. So visitors to the Riviera delight in learning to cook Ligurian cuisine, and we recommend that every wellness retreat here includes at least a short introduction to the region's gastronomic traditions.
Because the Riviera is hemmed in between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, it lacks big tracts of land for raising cattle or growing wheat. Instead, farming is done on little patches of land, normally terraced along the hills of this mountainous region. Because of this geography, many local dishes tend to be pescetarian, vegetarian or vegan. Even dishes that do include meat tend to be quite frugal with it and, indeed, meat can easily be left out or substituted for vegan or vegetarian alternatives.
Similarly, the lack of grain has influenced cooking in Liguria, Provençe and the Côte d'Azur. Of course, today Ligurians enjoy fine pasta as much as the rest of Italy does. But there are also older recipes here that are gluten-free and very light on carbohydrates. Slow cooking vegetable-based stews are a delight during Riviera winters. In early spring, artichokes and asparagus are abundant, and by summer the locals are eating salads almost every day, often accompanied by grilled seafood and dark, flavour-packed Taggiasche olives. By early autumn, late-ripening fruits like figs, quinces and apples are on the table and by Christmas-time, the Riviera's citrus harvest is ready once again.
The long coastline, combined with the naval traditions inherited from the Genoese, mean that the Riviera is naturally a seafaring region. Fishermen bring fresh fish to the markets of Nice, Monaco and Sanremo daily. The result is a cuisine high in healthy Omega oils, with famous dishes such as salade Niçoise and stuffed anchovies.
All this healthy food is a wonderful power source for the region's wellness pursuits. Cycling and roller blading have boomed on the Italian side of the Riviera, since the old coast-hugging railway line was turned into a scenic 24 kilometre-long traffic-free paved path. In the hills, hiking guides take visitors to little-known vantage points where Liguria's Celtic Druids used to worship. And on mountain-top perches in the nature reserves of the Côte d'Azur, yoga, meditation and pilates groups can be seen throughout the warmer months of the year.
Riviera Route has a network of qualified, experienced instructors in every aspect of wellbeing. We also work with instructors abroad who bring their students to the Riviera for retreats of between three and seven days. Please contact us to design a tailor-made retreat for your group, or get in touch to learn more about upcoming wellness retreats that you can join.
Riviera Route Summer 2020 Wellness Retreats:
24-26 June: Mountaintop yoga retreat - Triora, Italy
8-12 July: Meditation retreat - Parc Départemental de la Grande Corniche / Éze, France
9-13 September - hiking, cycling and cooking on the Italian Riviera - Sanremo, Ceriana and Dolceacqua, Italy
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