Choose your playground: which glamour coastline of Europe is for you?

By Amy Cooper

It's always hard, deciding where in the Mediterranean to park my 500-foot mega-yacht at this time of year. Shall I steer it into St Tropez or anchor it in Antibes, next to Mal's? Non, merci, no Cannes do. I'm sailing to Spain.

In this clash of the coastlines, every metre in a southerly direction matters and the Costa del Sol, on Europe's bottommost bit, is the continent's sunniest spot. Spread over 145 kilometres of bask-on-me beaches, many of them bodaciously bougie and others boldly blue-collar, Spain's Andalusian costa is filled with famous names: Malaga, Marbella, Torremolinos, Fuengirola, Nerja.

Marbella's Puerto Banus out-blings St Tropez by a nautical mile, with a whopping 900 yacht slots filled with ginormous gin palaces upon which the likes of Mel Gibson, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lady Gaga frolic. It's a floating circus of celebrities, best viewed from the legendary waterfront Sinatra Bar.

True, Marbella does attract orange-bodied people in tiny clothes who say: "No carbs before Marbs", but there's also classic glam. The lavish Marbella Club, founded in 1955 by Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe (try saying that during cocktail hour) oozes genteel opulence. Then there's Torremolinos, known affectionately as "Torrie" by package tour Brits of my generation, who loved this ebullient seaside town the way toddlers love their favourite toy - roughly, with occasional vomit. Still lively but now far more family friendly, the Costa's most visited resort has seven kilometres of spectacular beaches connected by a scenic promenade replete with bars, watersports and sand sculptures.

Despite the towering hotels, nightclubs and more golf courses than you can shake a nine-iron at (in fact, dear swingers, Europe's greatest concentration of them), there's history everywhere. Andalusia was once under Moorish rule, and the influence remains in architectural treasures like Malaga's 11th-century Alcazaba fortress and 14th-century Gibralfaro Castle, Fuengirola's 10th-century Soheil Castle and Benamaldena's whitewashed old town, built between 700 and 1200.

The Costa del Sol's hills are alive with traditional Andalusian villages like the impossibly adorable Mijas Pueblo, a whitewashed vision of pretty plazas, flowers and fountains. You can take a day trip to British territory Gibraltar - one of the small collection of rocks that today suffices for an empire - and see WWII tunnels, Europe's southernmost lookout, and Barbary apes, the continent's only wild primates (at least since those party days in Torrie).

Best of all, it won't costa you anywhere near as much as the exorbitant French Riviera, where the price of a kir royale could buy you something big enough to berth at Puerto Banus.

Hola! See you at Sinatra Bar for a sizzling Spanish summer.

By Mal Chenu

European royalty, landed gentry, artists, billionaires, sportspersons, various James Bonds and Instagram influencers have all been lured to the French Riviera (aka Cote d'Azur) over the years. Just the name conjures up images of stunning coastline, superyachts and luxe villas with infinity pools overlooking flawless beaches.

Mais oui, La Cote d'Azur is a classy, elegant paradise with a Med-vibe, populated by implausibly pretty people nursing crystal flutes with chilled Dom Perignon delicately bubbling over the rim. But the region is also abuzz with visitors happily recording their 21 euro croissant and cafe au lait combos. And you could be one of them!

Sometimes described as a sunny place for shady people, the French Riviera regularly featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Over-extended. Its endless sunshine and epicurean luminosity puts lesser playgrounds in the shade, including the Costa del Sol. The Monty Python lads got it right when they pilloried Torremolinos, Malaga and other Costa del Sol locales in their Travel Agent skit. Costa's lager-lout pull factor is well-known and you should definitely go if partying with "an adenoidal typist from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhea" is on your bucket list.

Meanwhile, back at incomparable-glamour ground zero, permanent residents include excitement, opulence and half the world's superyachts. And apart from the 115 kilometres of beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3000 restaurants, place names such as Monaco, Nice, Saint-Tropez and Cannes roll off the tongue like truffle foie gras.

Monaco's belle epoque marble-and-gold casino is a sure bet, and the local Formula One Grand Prix is the grandest of grands prix. Half the F1 drivers choose to live in this glittering principality, due to its sunshine, panache and picturesque zero-tax rate. In Nice, you can stroll, cycle, skate or scoot the Promenade des Anglais along the bay past oiled sunbathers on Plage Publique des Ponchettes. Continue through the winding alleyways of the old town, past Renaissance-era architectural gems to Cours Saleya market square, and a well-earned pissaladiere pastry.

Despite what I learned in maths class, Tropeziens do not have two parallel sides. The people of Saint-Tropez still lionise Brigitte Bardot, whose 1956 move And God Created Woman made the city a jet-set must-get. The best views in Saint-Tropez are from the 1602-built Citadelle, if you don't count the renowned nudist beach of Plage de Tahiti.

There's more to Cannes than the glam film festival, although posing for a photo on the steps of Palais des Festivals et des Congres is de rigueur. You can drink and dine on the Boulevard de la Croisette, and stay at the Carlton, whose twin domes are modelled on the bosom of a 19th-century courtesan. What could be more French Riviera than that?

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