Nice is the capital of the French Riviera (Côte d'Azur) and the fifth-largest city in France, a place that spent most of its history as part of the County of Nice under the Duchy of Savoy before being annexed to France in 1860 — which explains why the Old Town (Vieux-Nice) has an Italian Baroque character quite unlike anything in Provence, with deep ochre facades, arched passageways and a cuisine built on Ligurian-Italian foundations. The Promenade des Anglais (named for the 19th-century English aristocrats who wintered here and funded the coastal walkway in 1822) runs 7 km along the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels) between the hills of Castle Hill and the airport, with its famous blue chairs (Chaises Bleues) and the extraordinary sunlight that attracted Matisse (who lived here 1917–1954) and Chagall. The food identity of Nice is as distinct as the city itself: socca (a crispy chickpea flour pancake cooked on wood fires), pissaladière (caramelised onion tart with anchovies and olives), salade niçoise (the original has tuna, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs and olives — never cooked vegetables according to local purists), pan bagnat (the portable version of salade niçoise in a bun) and the stockfish-based stew estocafico. The Carnival of Nice (February) is the oldest and one of the largest in Europe; the Battle of Flowers parade sends 80,000 blooms into the crowd in an explosion of mimosa, roses and carnations that defines the city's relationship with the flower-growing industry of the surrounding hills.
The Cours Saleya flower and food market (Tue–Sun 06:00–13:00) is one of the great European market experiences — flower sellers from the hills of Grasse sell mimosa, roses and carnations; the socca vendor Chez René Socca opens at 09:00 and always has a queue.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe chickpea flour crêpe cooked on a wood fire in a copper pan, eaten standing up with black pepper — the most authentic version in Nice is at Chez René Socca; the narrow streets of Vieux-Nice with Baroque facades and window boxes above small trattorias.
The hill above Vieux-Nice where the medieval city once stood (demolished by Louis XIV in 1706 as punishment for resisting French annexation) is now a park — the 92-metre belvedere view across the Bay of Angels, the Promenade des Anglais and the red rooftops of Vieux-Nice is the definitive Nice panorama.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 7 km seafront promenade with its blue chairs facing the pebble beach and the extraordinary azure of the Baie des Anges — the 2016 terrorist attack memorial near the Hotel Negresco is a somber but important stop.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe true salade niçoise (raw vegetables, tuna, anchovies, hard eggs — zero cooked vegetables per the 2019 official Nice recipe) and daube de boeuf at the Boccaccio terrace or any of the Cours Saleya restaurants that open for the evening.
The ochre 17th-century Genoese villa in the Cimiez olive grove holds the world's largest collection of Matisse works — he lived in Nice 1917–1954 and donated the core collection; the Blue Nude cutouts and the chapel drawings are among the most important works of 20th-century art.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe museum Chagall himself created (1973) holds the 17 large-scale paintings of his Biblical Message series — stained glass windows in the concert hall, the extraordinary blue and purple of the Mediterranean in pigment form. One of the finest single-artist museums in Europe.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 1912 onion-domed cathedral (the largest Russian Orthodox church outside Russia) was built because the Russian Imperial family wintered on the Riviera — the five-domed silhouette in Byzantine style feels entirely incongruous and perfectly placed.
The caramelised onion tart with anchovies and olives (pissaladière) and a glass of pastis is the quintessential Nice aperitivo — the terraces of Cours Saleya in the evening when the flower market stalls have gone and restaurants open.
The perched medieval village of Éze (429 m above sea level) has views across the Mediterranean to Corsica on clear days — Frédéric Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra while walking the goat path from the beach; the Jardin Exotique has cacti and sea panoramas.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThirty minutes from Nice by train, Monaco's Formula 1 circuit runs through the streets past the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the tunnel (famous for the blind corner in wet conditions), the harbour and the royal palace on the rock — the circuit is open to traffic year-round and walkable.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Ephrussi de Rothschild villa (1912) and its nine themed gardens (French formal, Japanese, Florentine, Spanish, Provençal, exotic, stone, rose and Sèvres) on the Cap Ferrat peninsula are among the most beautiful privately-created gardens in France.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe pan bagnat (salade niçoise pressed into a round bun soaked in olive oil, the "bathed bread") from a Cours Saleya take-away, eaten with a glass of Provence rosé at the old port watching the fishing boats and superyachts — the perfect Nice goodbye.