The ramparts walk and the Bastion du Dauphin

François I had these ramparts built in the 1540s and they still run the entire circuit of the village, which is what makes Saint-Paul different from the other perched villages behind Nice: you can walk the whole way round the outside of it on the chemin de ronde. The wall is high, plain and warm-coloured, and it gives clean backgrounds that no gallery window or shop sign gets into.

The north end is the frame. The Bastion du Dauphin projects out from the wall and opens the view in two directions at once — inland to the Alpes-Maritimes and the pre-Alps, and south-east down the valley to the sea past Cagnes. Sunrise lights the inland side; the last hour of the day puts warm light along the wall itself.

The south end, by contrast, is the quiet end: the cemetery where Marc Chagall is buried sits just outside the gate, with cypresses and a view over the valley. It is a working cemetery, so treat it as one — no session inside the walls, only the approach and the view from beside it.

The walk is on stone, part of it unfenced with a drop on the outside, and there is no shade. Morning or evening, and shoes that can handle uneven paving; the wall itself stays photogenic even under grey sky, when the crowd inside the village thins out.