Berlitz: Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo Pocket Guide

• Publisher: Berlitz Travel
• ISBN:
  9781780048093
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Voyage

Berlitz Pocket Guide Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo combines authoritative narrative detail with colour photography to uncover these glamorous cities. It tells you everything you need to know about their attractions, from Nice's fascinating Old Town and the seafront promenade of Cannes to the casino and Caf de Paris in Monte Carlo, Europe's second-smallest state. Handy maps on the cover flaps help you get around.

To inspire you, the book offers a rundown of the Cote d'Azur's Top 10 Attractions, followed by an itinerary for a Perfect Day in Cannes. The What to Do chapter is a snapshot of ways to spend your spare time, from nightlife and people-watching to opera and sports.

The book provides all the essential background information, including a brief history of the Riviera and an Eating Out chapter covering the area's cuisine. There are carefully chosen listings of the best hotels and restaurants and an A-Z of all the practical information you'll need.

Where To Go

The cities of Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo dominate one of the most celebrated stretches of coastline in the world, a 50km (30-mile) strip where heavily built-up resorts are interspersed by exclusive peninsulas, home to the happy few, and bordered on the interior by the arrière-pays of medieval hill villages and Alpine foothills. If you're not jet-setting by yacht or helicopter between the three, they are well connected by railway, by the A8 autoroute and the coastal roads, notably the spectacular trio of corniches between Nice and the Italian frontier, with hairpin bends and stunning sea views.

Brightly coloured houses line the streets of Monaco

iStockphoto

Nice

With a splendid position curving along the broad sweep of the Baie des Anges, Nice 1 [map] merits its reputation as the Queen of the Riviera or its affectionate Nissart name, Nissa la Bella. Central Nice divides neatly into two parts: Italianate Vieux Nice, beneath the Colline du Château, to the east of the River Paillon; and the elegant New Town, which grew up in the 19th and early 20th centuries behind the promenade des Anglais to the west. Beyond, Nice extends over a series of hills – Cimiez, Les Baumettes, Piol, Fabron – where urban-isation has largely taken over olive groves and villa gardens.

Vieux Nice

Against a backdrop of colourful houses, Baroque churches and campaniles, the picturesque Old Town mixes Nice at its most traditional, where some elderly residents still speak Nissart (an Occitan language related to Provençal) and restaurants serve local specialities that appear not to have changed for generations, alongside bohemian bars, art galleries and clothes shops reflecting the young cosmopolitan set that has rejuvenated the district.

Enter Vieux Nice on rue St-François-de-Paule, reached from place Masséna or the Jardin Albert I, passing the town hall, the chic Hôtel Beau Rivage (where Matisse stayed on his first visit in 1917) and the elaborate pink-columned facade of the Opéra de Nice A [map] (www.opera-nice.org), rebuilt in 1884 on the site of the earlier opera house, gutted when the stage curtain caught fire. Across the street, family-run Maison Auer has been producing candied fruits and chocolates since 1820, while Alziari draws connoisseurs for its olive oil, produced at its own mill in the west of the city and sold in decorative tins.

The imposing facade of the Opéra de Nice

Sylvaine Poitau/APA

Cours Saleya

The street leads into broad cours Saleya B [map] and the colourful flower market (Tue–Sun 6am–5.30pm) and fruit and vegetable market (Tue–Sun 6am–1pm), held under bright striped awnings, where laden stalls reflect the profusion of Riviera produce. Along with the tourists, the market is still frequented by local residents and the town's best chefs.

Fruit stall in cours Saleya

Sylvaine Poitau/APA

The market spreads into adjoining place Pierre Gautier, where you'll find many stalls run by local producers, selling nothing but lemons or delicate orange courgette flowers. On Monday, the fruit and vegetables are replaced by antiques and bric-a-brac stalls. On one side, the Forum d'Urbanisme et d'Architecture de la Ville de Nice C [map] (Mon–Thur 8.30am–5pm, Fri 8.30am–3.45pm, Sat 9am–1pm; free) holds interesting exhibitions about Nice's architectural heritage and urban projects. At the back of the square, the colonnaded former Palace of the Kings of Sardinia was built by the King of Piedmont when Nice was returned to Sardinia after the Revolution, and now serves as the Préfecture of the Alpes-Maritimes. Next door, the white stone Palais de Justice opens onto place du Palais, facing the russet-coloured Palazzo Rusca D [map], a Baroque mansion with impressive triple-storey arcades on one side and an 18th-century clock tower on the other. There is a second-hand book market on the square on the first and third Saturday of each month.

Cours Saleya is bordered on the sea side by Les Ponchettes, a double alley of low fishermen's cottages, with archways leading through to quai des Etats Unis. Amid restaurants and a couple of exclusive shops, two vaulted halls play host to municipal exhibitions of contemporary art: Galerie des Ponchettes and Galerie de la Marine (both Tue–Sun 10am–6pm; free). About halfway along cours Saleya, the Chapelle de la Miséricorde E [map] (Tue 2.30–5.30pm) is generally considered the finest of all Nice's Baroque interiors. It belongs to the pénitents noirs, one of the religious lay fraternities that still thrives in the town, but is only open for extremely limited hours. Further along, on the corner with rue de la Poissonnerie, is the Adam and Eve house, one of the oldest buildings in the city, decorated with a Naïve 16th-century relief of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Vieux Nice architecture

Sylvaine Poitau/APA

Heart of the Old Town

However, it is in the grid of narrow, shady streets behind cours Saleya where you get a real feel for the atmosphere of Vieux Nice. Although the population started moving down from Castle Hill in the 13th century, the town was almost entirely reconstructed in the 17th and 18th centuries, giving it much the appearance it has today: for the most part tall simple facades in tones of yellow and orange, punctuated by Baroque churches and the occasional fine carved doorway.

In the heart of Vieux Nice, lively place Rossetti has a dual appeal: the ice creams and sorbets of Fenocchio (www.fenocchio.fr), where more than 90 flavours range from classic coffee and pistachio to rose, pina colada and beer; and the sculpted facade of Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate F [map] (Mon–Fri 9am–noon, 2–6pm, Sat until 7.30pm, Sun 9am–1pm, 3–6pm), built on a cruciform plan in the 1650s. It is dedicated to early Christian martyr Saint Reparata, the city's patron saint, whose body, accompanied by two angels (hence the name Baie des Anges) is said to have arrived here by boat after drifting across the Mediterranean from Palestine, where she had been decapitated at the age of 15. Despite its impressive painted dome over the transept and numerous Baroque side chapels, the Niçois prefer the cheerful little Eglise Sainte-Rita G [map] (Mon–Sat 7am– noon, 2.30–6.30pm, Sun 8am–noon, 3–6.30pm) on rue de la Poissonnerie, an intimate gem, with a skylit half-dome and profusion of sculpted saints, barley-sugar columns and sunbursts. Take a look also at the arcaded Loggia Communale, dating from 1574, around the corner on rue de la Préfecture.

Inside Sainte-Réparate

GregoryWrona

From here, rue Droite, once the main thoroughfare, leads to the Eglise Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur or Eglise du Gésu H [map] (Tue 3–7pm, Thur 3–5.30pm, Sat 9am–noon, 3–6pm), built by the Jesuit order in 1612. It set the model for Nice's Baroque churches, with its single-naved interior full of stucco cherubs and stripy painted marble, although the blue-and-white classical facade is a later reworking. Further up the street at No. 15 is the Palais Lascaris I [map] (Wed–Mon 10am–6pm; free), the 17th-century Genoese-style mansion of the Lascaris-Ventimille family and Nice's grandest secular Baroque building. The sober street facade does not prepare you for the splendour of the interior, with its magnificent vaulted stairway, decorated with sculptures and frescoed grotesques. On the second floor, staterooms, furnished with Baroque furniture and tapestries, have spectacular painted ceilings with mythological scenes: Venus and Adonis, the Abduction of Psyche and the Fall of Phaethon, where youth and horses tumble from the sky amid a mass of swirling clouds. The first floor has been renovated to house the town'...