A walk along Nice's Promenade des Anglais captures all that's best about the French Riviera: posh hotels, a blue Mediterranean and boutiques shaded by awnings stamped with expensive brand names. Nearby lies Villefranche, its lovely waterfront lined with restaurants, the hills nearby with lavenders and vines. Santa Margherita is our first port of call in Italy, a country that still sets the benchmark for style and design. Along Rome's Via Condotti, around the piazzas in Florence, over the canals in Venice, art and architecture are part and parcel of everyday life. Bars and trattorias look out on enviable vistas and new treasures are still coming to light. As if to prove the point, our call in Sorrento offers the chance of a visit to the excavations in Pompeii.