If the Côte d’Azur has always been a magnet to creatives, with painters and poets flocking to seek inspiration in the South of France, then Nice has also long been a haunt for everyone from Jean Cocteau to Elton John, Richard Burton to Bono, Davis Beckham to Lewis Hamilton. The Riviera city is also the location for the final weekend of this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, which has a likely sprint finish on the final Saturday before a potentially decisive final stage taking in four climbs over the Col d’Eze.
You might recognize the Col d’Eze and the corniche roads overlooking the Mediterranean, not just as a training road for everyone from Sean Kelly to Tadej Pogačar, from Tony Rominger to Paul Seixas, but also from films like 1955’s “To Catch a Thief,” starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, and 1998’s “Ronin,” with Robert De Niro and Jean Reno.
Nice is an ancient settlement, described as being “at the crossroads of Mediterranean and alpine cultures and influences,” with “ancient ruins and classical buildings, Baroque churches and Belle Epoque and Art Deco facades.” But modern Nice is a big city, vibrant and busy, with a major international airport close to the Promenades des Anglais—in fact, you can walk to the beach from the arrivals lounge—an ambitious, if stalled, professional soccer team, a reputation for staging international sports events and a multi-lingual community.
The heart of the city is dominated by the cobbled streets of Vieux Nice and the elegantly shuttered Italianate villas that line the narrow alleyways around the Marché des Fleurs and the grand space of the Cours Saleya, now populated by brasseries and cafés. If the culture of Nice somehow feels Italian, that’s because much of it is. It sits close to the border with Italy, and that influence is reflected in the cuisine, the attitudes and the styles of the locals as they stroll through the streets. It may be one of the biggest cities in La République Française, but sometimes it feels as French as focaccia. Most of us have enjoyed a salade niçoise, but there are other distinctive local specialties, including socca, daube niçoise, beignets de fleurs de courgettes and farcis niçois. If you’re spending time in Nice, it’s obligatory to drink chilled rosé wine, particularly as the best pale rosé in Europe—rosé gris—comes from just down the coast in the vineyards of the Var department. The locals won’t even frown if you drop some ice in your glass when the mercury climbs into the mid-30s Celsius (the 100s Fahrenheit).
FULL PROFILE IN PRINT
