Nice is located on the Cote d'Azur and is known outside the country as one of the best resorts in the Mediterranean. It was founded by the Greeks in the 4th century BC, having named the city in honor of Nike, the goddess of victory. Throughout its long history, Nice has experienced many battles, big and small, suffered disasters and reached its peak, passed from hand to hand, and then led a calm respectable existence. A turbulent political, economic and military past has left a lot of evidence, and today thousands of tourists come to the Cote d'Azur every year to get acquainted with the historical heritage and spend their holidays on the best Mediterranean beaches. If you are deciding what to see in Nice, pay attention to the numerous museum exhibitions, visit temples and palaces, stroll along the main square and admire the magnificent panorama of the sea from the waterfront of the beautiful city.
TOP 10 attractions of Nice
Old city
The pearl of the Cote d'Azur, Nice has concentrated dozens of architectural monuments in its historical part. On the streets of the old town you will see palaces and mansions of the nobility, churches and villas, fountains and a medieval fort.
Particular attention should be paid to the clock towers: erected in the 18th century on the square. Justice and the Rusca Tower, the blue dial of the clock on which is called the hallmark of Nice and the Côte d'Azur.
English Embankment
The most famous street in Nice stretches for 7 km along the Mediterranean Sea. The Promenade des Anglais begins at the Napoleon III bridge and ends at Quai des États-Unis. The embankment got its name thanks to the British Lewis Way and his wife, who created in the winter of 1820-21. funds for the employment of the unemployed. That winter was particularly cold, and many people in Nice were on the brink of poverty.
The Chet Way financed the construction of the embankment and the new 2m wide road was named Chemin des anglais. Then the embankment was extended, expanded, updated and named English. Palaces, casinos and hotels have sprung up along the street, and in 1930, the city's mayor, Jean Médzan, ran a motorway along the promenade and supplemented the landscape with squares and green spaces.
There are several notable buildings on the odd side of the Promenade des Anglais:
- House N1 is occupied by the Hotel Méridien.
- House N15 houses the Mediterranean Palace. It was built in 1929 in the Art Deco style, then rebuilt, but the facade has remained unchanged since those years. Today the building houses a casino, hotel and theater.
- At N37 you will find the famous Hotel Negresco. In 1912 it was opened by an emigrant who started his career as a manager of the Municipal casino. Having grown rich, Negresco opened the most famous hotel on the French Riviera.
- If you are looking to stay in a modern hotel in Nice, look no further than N223, which houses the Radisson SAS Hotel.
The Promenade des Anglais today, like decades ago, is a favorite walking place for the townspeople and guests of Nice, and it is often called the Promenade des Anglais.
Hotel "Negresco"
Born into the family of a Romanian innkeeper, Henri Negresco has always dreamed of building a luxury hotel on the French Riviera. At the age of 15, he left Bucharest and went to Nice. Through hard work, Henri managed to get back on his feet and, with the support of a businessman and pioneer of the French automotive industry, Alexander Darrac, build a hotel for wealthy guests.
"Negresco" is called the symbol of the Cote d'Azur. The construction of a fashionable neoclassical hotel cost 3 million gold francs. Outstanding engineers, architects and artists worked on the development and implementation of the project and interior decoration.
The frame of the rose dome was forged in the Eiffel workshop, the four-meter chandelier was assembled in a glass factory producing baccarat crystal, and the floor of the Royal Salon was covered with a hand-woven carpet measuring 375 square meters. It was woven in 1615 for the chambers of Marie de Medici. The carpet is still spread at Negresco on special occasions. The ceiling of the salon of Louis XIV, adjacent to the Royal, was removed from the Château de Medici. It was painted by court masters in the XIV century.
Camus and Coco Chanel, Hemingway and Françoise Sagan, Picasso and Dali stayed at the Negresco. The style of its rooms and apartments is not repeated, and the menu of the Le Chantecler restaurant has repeatedly received the highest awards from critics in the field of gastronomy.
Since 2009, the hotel, according to the will of the hostess Jeanne Ogier, belongs to a charitable foundation. The organization fights for animal rights and one of its activities is the prohibition of bullfighting.
Opera theatre
Parisians believe that the opera building in Nice is very much like the Parisian Garnier, but even so, the luxurious mansion deserves a separate and no less attention than the capital's theater, attention of city guests.
The first opera house in Nice was built in 1776, but was destroyed by a violent fire. The work on the construction of the new building was supervised by Eiffel's student, the architect and engineer François On, and for approval the project lay on the table to Charles Garnier himself, a genius master of the eclectic era and a practitioner of the Bose art style.
The building is decorated with light stone carving and forging, the interiors are decorated with sculptures and paintings. Of particular note is the chandelier that illuminates the theater hall with 600 lamps.
Matisse Museum
French painter Henri Matisse is known as a master of conveying emotions through color and shape. The direction in which he worked was called "fauvism", from the French "les fauves" or "wild beasts". Exaltation of color and "wild" expressiveness of paintings by Matisse and his followers evoked approximately such associations among his contemporaries.
The Matisse Museum in Nice occupies a 17th century Genoese villa, and its collection is called an exhibition not only of creativity, but also of the artist's life itself. In addition to paintings, his belongings and favorite books are exhibited in the mansion.
The Matisse Museum contains over 200 drawings, 68 paintings, 57 sculptures and many original photographs of the great master. Sketches are side by side with finished works, which allows tracing and comprehending the artist's creative intentions, because Matisse always said that a museum is a place for the study of creativity, and not just an exhibition.
To get there: bus. N15, 17, 22 and 25 to the stop. Les Arènes / musee.
Ticket price: 5 euros.
Marc Chagall Museum
Another famous painter of the twentieth century, whose work is inextricably linked with France, is Mark Zakharovich Chagall. His museum appeared on the Cote d'Azur during the lifetime of the master, and initially the exposition consisted of only 17 works on biblical themes. This cycle, written in the 60s of the last century, was donated by Chagall and his wife to the French government. Subsequently, the collection was supplemented with works from the 1930s.
The museum first opened in 1973. The building of light stone is located in the garden, and in its three halls visitors can look not only at the paintings, but also at the stained glass windows created by Chagall donated to Nice. Among the exhibits you will find tapestries and lithographs, prints and sketches.
Ticket price: 6, 5 euros.
Museum of Fine Arts
The Municipal Museum of Nice, where works of art from the 17th and 20th centuries are exhibited, is named after Jules Cheret. The famous graphic artist was the founder of the art of poster and the collection contains part of his work.
The museum was founded in 1928. The collection is housed in a mansion built at the end of the 19th century by the secret adviser to the Russian emperor L. V. Kochubei. The first exhibits were donated by Napoleon III, thus marking the annexation of Nice to France.
Today in the halls of the museum you can look at paintings by Fragonard and Robert, and the decoration of the winter garden is the sculpture by Auguste Rodin "The Bronze Age". On the top floor of the mansion, you will find masterpieces by Monet and Sisley.
Castle hill
Once in this part of old Nice there was a castle, but in the Middle Ages it was destroyed and only the name of the Castle Hill remained from it. Today in its place is a later building - the Bellanda Tower of the 19th century. On the Castle Hill, you will also find the ruins of the Cathedral of St. Mary, dating from the 11th century, but rebuilt many times later. But the main attraction of this part of Nice is the magnificent views of the Mediterranean Sea, opening from the height of the hill.
Nicholas cathedral
The history of the creation of the largest Orthodox church in Nice and throughout Western Europe began in 1865, when Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, heir to the Russian throne and son of Emperor Alexander II, died in a mansion in Bermont Park. The emperor bought the villa, and in 1867 a chapel was laid in its place in memory of the tsarevich. In the place where his bed stood, a black marble slab was embedded in the floor of the chapel.
Later, the Chapel of the Tsarevich became the altar part of the temple, the patronage of the construction of which was taken over by Emperor Nicholas II and the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. The temple was founded in 1903 and the largest donors were the Emperor, Prince Golitsyn, Baron Rothschild and Countess Apraksina.
The height of the cathedral is 50 m. The temple can accommodate more than 600 people at the same time. The facades are decorated with Florentine tiles, mosaic icons were made by artists from St. Petersburg, and the iconostasis was made by jewelers of Khlebnikov's workshop in Moscow.
The main shrines of the church are the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, icons of St. Apostle Peter and Archangel Michael.
To get there: by bus. N17, 27, 75 to the stop. Tzarewitch.
Roman hill
The ruins of an ancient Roman settlement called Tsemenelum have been preserved in the Cimier quarter. During the excavations, scientists discovered baths, residential buildings and the ruins of an amphitheater, erected in the 1st century. Walking along the Roman Hill of Nice, you can get an impression of how people lived in that era. The found artifacts have found a place in the Archaeological Museum, and its exposition is of undoubted interest for lovers of the history of the Ancient World.
