Finding F. Scott Fitzgerald: My Journey Retracing the Writer’s Steps Along the South of France | Vogue

"A few hours after I arrive, I’m seated at dinner when a flash of green light ricochets across the glittering water from a pinprick of a lighthouse in the middle of the Mediterranean, and I feel as if I’ve wandered into The Great Gatsby while a glass of vermentino sweats on the table. Long ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald rented the house that became this quite beautiful hotel—then called Villa St. Louis—and in a letter to Ernest Hemingway he said that being back in such a beautiful house had made him happier than he’d been in ages; the hotel opened not long after the Fitzgeralds left in 1927. Traces of him are everywhere: just off reception, a bar bears his name, and black-and-white portraits of him and Zelda are blown up near the Art Deco elevator. The literary thread continues with the Prix Fitzgerald, an annual prize celebrating writers who explore the themes that captivated him; while I’m in town, it honors Richard Ford and draws well-dressed locals and Fitzgerald enthusiasts who snack on bite-sized empanadas and arancini as the prosecco flows." - Mattie Kahn