Most people arrive on the Riviera wanting to be on the water and leave wanting to be above it. Mougins is where a good number of them end up: fifteen minutes above Cannes, high enough for the air to move in August, close enough that dinner on the Croisette is not an expedition.
The old village is pedestrian and genuinely lived in rather than preserved for visitors. It has kept its cooking — this was Roger Vergé’s village, and the standard he set has not entirely gone. Around it, the hills hold walled properties on generous plots, most of them invisible from the road.
For families the argument is practical. The international schools are here or within a short drive, the airport is close enough to be unremarkable, and children can have a garden rather than a terrace. Those three facts move more families off the coast than any view ever has.
What to look for: a southern aspect, because the difference between a south-facing terrace and a north-facing one on these hills is the difference between using a garden in April and using it in June. Mature planting, which cannot be bought quickly. And a position off the through routes, since the lanes here carry more traffic in August than a spring viewing suggests.
