Visit France > Provence > French Riviera > Nice

Queen of the Riviera, Nice the beautiful, lively and colourful, spreads beyond the majestic curve of its Baie des Anges, surrounded by fan-like hills. During the Belle Époque, the inescapable Promenade des Anglais, stretching endlessly along the Mediterranean, used to be the fashionable rendezvous for Princes, aristocrats, and people of fashion. As a symbol of the city, it represents the image of Nice throughout the world. This wide avenue, lined with villas, mansions and prestigious luxury hotels - among which the legendary Négresco - is crowded with tourists from all over the world. Nice's long and glorious past, first Greek, then Roman, Italian and French, can be read through its different districts. The eastern enclave, which shelters the harbour, the ancient Port Lympia, is the cradle of the city; the Phoceans, arriving from Marseilles during the Vth century BC, conquered its territory, naming it Nikaïa, which means Victory. Thus was born one of the most ancient cities of the French Riviera. Later, the Romans set up their capital on the hill of Cimiez; with its public baths (thermæ) and its amphitheatre, this archaeological site bears witness to this occupation right in a residential district where the luxurious dwellings of the "wintering" members of Europe's high society can be found. 

Incorporated into Provence, Nice came under the rule of the Dukes of Savoy - who became Princes of Piedmont and later Kings of Sardinia - before becoming a part of France in 1860. On the eastern end of the Promenade des Anglais, the Colline du Château (the Castle's Hill) on which the old Citadel defending the city used to stand, reminds us of this region's troubled history. From the mouth of the River Var all the way to Mount Boron, which separates it from Villefranche and its natural harbour, Nice is brimful of splendours. The Italian imprint is still alive in Old Town (Vieux-Nice), a picturesque and lively district that hides, through a maze of small streets and stairways, jewels of Baroque architecture represented by a vast number of churches and palaces. In the heart of the city, lovely squares lined with arcades bear the names of famous natives such as Massena and Garibaldi.

The Paillon, a half-covered river, runs north to south through Nice before flowing into the Mediterranean; the modern town, crowded with "Rococo" buildings dating back from the Roaring Twenties, spreads on the river's right bank. The bulb-shaped cupolas of the Orthodox Cathedral remind us of the fact that, after having lured the English, Nice became a holiday resort for a substantial Russian community.