When visiting a new country, the best way to ensure that you have the most luxurious stay is to book yourself into a 5 star resort. However, you can now experience an even more exclusive getaway by renting your own village!

Rentavillage.com is now offering its wealthy clientele the opportunity to rent an entire town for around $60,000 a night. The whole village would be at your disposal, ready for you to spend your stay however you please.

You could rename the streets and squares, have your name or company logo carved into the snow on a mountain slope, or even change the currency for the duration of your visit.

The inhabitants of your chosen location earn a living from the village and local businesses and clubs also contribute to any events you organise on your trip, offering their expertise in areas such as catering and indoor/outdoor activities.

Karl Schwärzler of Xnet (the company that runs the rentavillage website) reports that this concept has become a firm favourite with large global organisations who want to go all out to impress their clients.

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Talk about an art exhibition being held in inspirational surroundings! Until 15^th April this year, the work of six sculptors will be featured on the sides of the ski lifts on the Verdons slopes, one of the most famous ski locations in Courchevel.

This ‘art museum in the sky’ will feature a range of popular, modern and street art, displayed at an altitude of 2,320 metres.

Alongside the masterpieces of six great contemporary sculptors shown at various stations within this popular French ski resort, including the work of the famous ‘Doggy John’, the works of 20 contemporary artists will also be suspended in the air on the ski lifts.

The artistic geniuses of the likes of Alain Godon, Franck Tordjmann and Robert Mars are being complimented proficiently by a backdrop of unblemished snow quilted across a dramatic range of mountains.

While the Cote d’Azur has been given the title as being a playground for the rich and famous, Courchevel is known as being a ski resort for the world’s richest skiers.

French billionaire business magnate, Bernard Arnault, who, according to Forbes Magazine is the world’s forth richest person in Europe, with a 2011 net worth $41 billion, is a regular face at the Courchevel ski resort.

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Some may argue that it has been a long time coming, but at last the elegant town of Menton, located between Monaco and the Italian Riviera, is celebrating Menton’s long and rich love affair with the painter, poet, filmmaker and dramatist Jean Cocteau, with the opening of the Jean Cocteau Museum.

Menton’s association with Cocteau dates back to the 1950s, when the multi-talented artist was commissioned by the city of Menton to create various pieces of art, including the Salles des Mariages in the city hall. In gratitude of the splendid work Cocteau carried out in the city, Menton adopted the artist as an honorary citizen.

It was during this time that Jean Cocteau transformed a small and abandoned fort in Menton into a museum for his personal artwork, where he hung his own paintings, tapestries and mosaics.

On November 6, 2011, Menton opened its doors to its own Jean Cocteau Museum, located in Menton’s Old Town in a building, so striking in its aesthetical merits that it does Cocteau’s artwork the justice it deserves.

Until May 7, 2012, the Severin Wunderman Collection will be held at the Cocteau Museum. The collection has been gathered by Severin Wunderman, a well-known art lover and former owner of the Swiss luxury watch brand Corum.

The exhibition consists of more than 2,000 artworks, including ceramics, books, paintings, tapestries, drawings, manuscripts, prints and jewellery made by Cocteau himself. A handful of artworks created by fellow artists, including Modigliani, Picasso and Di Chirico, are also on display at the exhibition.

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Saint-Paul-de-Vence, situated approximately 25 kilometres from Nice, is one of the oldest medieval towns on the Cote d’Azur. Having long been a haven for the rich and famous, in the 1960s this ancient town saw many a French actor being drawn to its unusual eccentricities, including Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura and Yves Montland.

Alongside famous actors, some of the world’s most celebrated artists have lived in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, such as Marc Chagnall, and, more recently, artist lovers Arielle Dombasle and Bernard Henri Levy.

Being a well-known hive for attracting famous actors, poets and artists, it seems only natural that Saint-Paul-de-Vence is equally as renowned for its modern and contemporary art museums and galleries, the most famous being La Fondation Maeght, one of the most esteemed galleries in the south of France.

The Fondation Maeght was founded in 1964 by Marguerite and Aime Maeght, a French art collector and editor. The extensive collection housed at the Fondation Maeght includes works by some of the most important and influential artists of the 20^th century, including Joan Miro, Fernand Leger, Georges Braque and Alexander Calder.

This independently funded gallery, which relies on no state funding whatsoever, attracts more than 200,000 visitors each year and many of the art exhibitions that are put on every year in museums throughout France, in Europe and beyond, are based on Fondation Maeght collections.

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