At the beginning of the 19th century, English aristocrats, inveterate and curious travellers wearing fine clothes, stopped over in the small Mediterranean fishing villages, on their way to Italy.

Dazzled by the azure light, their appetite and thirst satisfied with warm bouillabaisse and cool wines, the English Lords decided to stay on, building flowery villas and immaculate palaces: the French Riviera was launched.
They were followed by Russian princes, Austrian archdukes, Italian countesses and French dandies, and later by expatriate Americans and exiled White Russians, all participating in the glory of this incandescent paradise.

The first to open its doors in 1842, as a result of this fascination, the West End Hotel, then known as the Hotel de Rome and later as the Hotel Victoria, received the upper crust of the rich and powerful. King Frederick Augustus III, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolai and the Queen of The Netherlands, Sophia von Wurtemberg, stayed there with their suite, organizing sumptuous parties, such as the christening of a prince…