Elizabeth Sharland – författare

Read where British, American and French writers, actors and authors wined and dined in Paris. From Moliere to Deneuve, from Hemingway to Sedaris. Find out the theatre scene there, today and yesterday. Follow their footsteps in the City of Light and discover fabulous places including the setting of the Da Vinci Code in the Louvre.

"But I think that Life, and with that I also mean Love, comes first...it's the only thing that one has in the final seconds...the knowledge that one has had time, and sense, to live, breath, love and enjoy the time one has been given... I expect that all sounds a bit soppy me sitting on a hill in France and not being in a lovely lane near Cockshott! But I do KNOW, I have been there myself...and I have never been surer. For me, at any rate."

DIRK BOGARDE

In the south of France, when the Scott Fitzgeralds, the Murphys, Picasso, and Jean Cocteau lived and worked during the Jazz Age, the French Riviera became famous. Now, Nicole Bennett goes there to retrace their steps and try to discover who followed after them.

Disenchanted with her award-winning acting career as well as her one-year marriage to Nigel, she seeks to make a significant change in her life. She leaves London and attempts to fulfill her dream of writing a book about the writers who lived and worked in the south of France.

In Cannes, she meets new people and falls in love with the incredible scenery. While rediscovering the charm and magic of the Riviera, she is influenced by other writers-Graham Green, Dirk Bogarde, Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway- who once walked the same streets and enjoyed the same experiences. It's now up to Nicole to recreate the magic they all found.

Author Elizabeth Sharland visits the homes of authors, actors and composers, and muses on settings in which their creative work was done. She visits: George Sand's home in Nohant, Maugham, Ivor Novello (London), Puccini in Lake Lago, Coward in Jamaica, G.B. Shaw in Ayot St. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield in Menton, Paul Bowles in Morocco and Lady Gregory in County Galway.