Sight Seeing In Nice France

Although it rests on the Mediterranean shore in southeastern France, Nice is not a mere resort town but the fifth largest city in France. Nice has an old town striking beauty encompassing Italianate churches and a stately collection of 19th and early 20th century structures built to accommodate and impress the ever increasing entries of European aristocracy such as Queen Victoria and several ousted Russian Czars and Polish princes. Today, Nice is a city of the wealthy who seek it for its quiet beauty still unmolested by an overabundance of tourism.

As is true of many French regions, Nice has its own distinctive cuisine such as socca, chick pea pancakes and salade Nicoise. They are both heavenly delicious. Yum!

A visitor cannot, must not, come to Nice and not visit at least a few of its many museums and art galleries such as: Musée Chagall, Musée Matisse, Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Museum of Naïve Arts (Museum of Primitive Art), Musée Terra-Amata, Museum of Asian Art, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Natural History, Museum of Massena, Naval Museum and Galerie des Ponchettes. Each one of these has its own unique set of offerings and is equally worthy of your time.

The Promenade des Anglais (”Walk of the English”) is a notably panoramic promenade along the Mediterranean at Nice. Before the city was urbanized, the coast was just bordered by an abandoned strip of beach and the first houses were built on higher ground well away from the sea. During the second half of the 18th century many wealthy English spent their winters in Nice. When an unusually cold winter in northern France brought in hordes of beggars into Nice, some Englishmen hired them to construct a walkway, a promenade along the sea. It was originally called Camin dei Anglès (the English Way) but with the annexation of Nice by France in 1860 it was renamed to its current name.
The Hotel Negresco is an extravagant hotel built in 1912 on the Promenade de Anglais and was named for Henri Negresco (1868-1920) who commissioned its construction.

The Cathédrale Orthodoxe Russe Saint-Nicolas de Nice is a Russian Orthodox cathedral, and a national monument of France, located in the city of Nice since its construction in 1859 and claims to be the oldest Russian cathedral in Western Europe.

Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, dedicated to Joan of Arc, is a Catholic church designed and built between 1926 and 1933 by the architect Jacques Droz in reinforced concrete, a fact that contributed to its original construction style. Its interiors are decorated with paintings of Eugène Klementieff who was influenced by Russian cubism and orthodox icons. As a matter of fact, there is an ongoing debate among the inhabitants of Nice regarding this church—some judge it as ugly while others appreciate its unusual beauty. The church is sometimes nicknamed “the Meringue” for its snow-white color.

A few other places of interest worth visiting in Nice, France are the Old City with its winding lanes and little boutiques, patisieres, restaurants, snack bars and gift shops; Monument Aux Morts is a beautiful, contemplation inspiring monument to the dead facing the sea; Cours Saleya; Marché Aux Fleurs; Grand Hôtel Impérial; and Fort du MontAlban .

Nice is easily accessible to visitors from around the world via its international airport, the  Côte d’Azur International Airport, which is the third most important airport in France after Charles de Gaulle International Airport and Orly Airport in Paris and it accounted for 9,948,035 passengers travelling through its gates in 2006.

Posted in France Vacation Guide