Celebrities including Vanessa Paradis, Blake Lively, and Rachel Bilson looked on as Karl Lagerfeld showed his annual Croisière collection at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes on the French Riviera on May 9.

A new luxury train began running Thursday between Moscow and Nice in the south of France, in a flashback to the tsarist times when Russian aristocrats flocked to the French Riviera.

The Russian Railways-operated train will depart from Moscow’s Belorussky station every Thursday afternoon, and arrive in Nice 53 hours later after passing through European capitals including Warsaw and Vienna.

“Today is a day of celebration,” said Mikhail Akulov, vice president of Russian Railways, “It’s a new stage in our partnership with the French railways.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that his health was good as he has returned to work after his collapse while jogging at the weekend, but acknowledged that he needed a rest.

Sarkozy will start a three-week summer holiday this weekend, flying south to a family villa of his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, on the Mediterranean.

The residence, on the secluded promontory of Cap Negre, near the resort town of Saint-Tropez, is a solid masonry built on a rock headland.

For over four decades, the Byblos has been the reigning address in Saint-Tropez and is certainly unique in its architecture compared to the hotels of Cannes and Monaco.

Created as a Mediterranean village in the heart of Saint-Tropez, the Byblos is an oasis of flower-filled gardens and enchanting patios.

Rooms are individually decorated to impart tranquillity and elegance to all those who visit, in keeping with the spirit of fine Provencal living.

As we wrote about back in February, Russia’s richest man Mikhail Prokhorov had reportedly agreed to purchase the Villa for $750 million but later backed out of the deal, forfeiting a $55 million deposit.

The Telegraph says there have been panic sales by owners desperate for cash.

Riviera property sources said that one British owner settled for less than $60 million in January for a Cap Ferrat property whose original sale price was $200 million.