Nice was Italian-speaking Savoyard territory until 1860, and the layers show: Roman baths in Cimiez, ochre Genoese-style facades in Vieux-Nice, a Russian imperial cathedral, and Belle Époque palace hotels built for wintering British aristocrats.
The Roman city of Cemenelum, capital of the province of Alpes Maritimae, founded under Augustus around 14 BC. The excavated site holds three bath complexes and an amphitheatre seating roughly 5,000. Open Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays.
A monastery held by Benedictines from the 9th century and by Franciscans since 1546, with three Louis Bréa altarpieces (c. 1475–1512) from the Nice primitive school. Free entry; the cemetery holds Matisse and Dufy. Church open daily.
Nice's Baroque cathedral, built 1650–1699 by Jean-André Guibert on the site of a much older church, dedicated to a 15-year-old Palestinian martyr whose body legend says drifted into the Baie des Anges. Ten side chapels bought by the city's guilds.
The medieval city and its cathedral stood here until Louis XIV's troops razed the fortress in 1706. Excavated foundations of the 11th-century cathedral remain near the summit; the park is open daily 08:30 until 18:00–20:00 by season.
Built 1903–1912 on the spot where Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich died in 1865, funded by Tsar Nicholas II. Six onion domes, Yaroslavl-style brick and ceramic. Open daily 09:00–12:00 and 14:00–18:00; shoulders and knees covered.
Residence of the Dukes of Savoy and Kings of Sardinia from the 17th century, remodelled in the 1600s and again in 1907. It was here the transfer machinery of the 1860 annexation ran; the building has been the prefecture since.
A 1650s Genoese-Baroque aristocratic townhouse of the Lascaris-Vintimille family, with a trompe-l'œil staircase, Flemish tapestries and a 500-piece historic instrument collection. Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays.
The port was dug from a marsh starting in 1749 under Charles Emmanuel III. Above it, the 1928 war memorial carved into the cliff by Roger Séassal lists 4,000 Nice dead from 1914–18 in a 32 m arch.
An 1898 Belle Époque villa built for Victor Masséna, grandson of Napoleon's marshal, now the museum of Nice's history: the 1860 annexation, Garibaldi's birth here in 1807, and the winter colony. Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00.
The street was the walled ghetto of Nice from 1430 until 1848, gated at both ends at night. Plaques mark the synagogue site and the gate positions; the street was renamed for the senator who abolished the enclosure.
Laid out from 1773 as the Turin gateway of the city, with Piedmontese-style arcades and ochre-and-yellow facades. The chapel belongs to the Pénitents Bleus brotherhood; the 1891 Garibaldi statue faces the sea he left for South America.
Opened 1783 on the razed castle plateau, in three sections: Catholic, Jewish and Protestant. Garibaldi's parents lie here, alongside marble mausoleums of merchant families who ran Nice under Savoy.