Nice, France
Nice, France Travel Diary
Nice, France – what a beautiful city! During my 2 months in Villefranche-sur-Mer, I went over to Nice a ton of times and absolutely fell in love with the city. I chose to stay in Villefranche because I was there to work, and I wanted more peace and quiet than you get in a large city, but it was perfect to have it pretty much around the corner, a beautiful walk or short bus or train ride away.
When I took the bus from Villefranche to Nice (bus #15, a quick, scenic trip along the sea, the views are fantastic!), I used to get off at either the Old Port, Place Garibaldi or the last stop at the library, depending on where I wanted to go that day.
When I wanted to stroll along the waterfront, I got off the bus at the Old Port. When I wanted to shop for organic groceries at Naturalia or Bio, or explore Old Town, I’d get off the bus at Place Garibaldi. Naturalia is right there, Bio a short walk away, and Old Town is right around the corner. When I wanted to walk through the Promenade du Paillon and explore around Place Massena, shop at Galeries Lafayette, etc., I got off at the last stop at the library.
I often also went over without a plan and just walked around with my camera, taking pictures of anything that caught my eye.
Nice is a perfect city for walking, it’s very easy to get around on foot, and when you’re too tired to walk, there are trams running all over the city, inexpensive and super easy to use.
There is so much to see and do!
Nice, France
Nice, France
The Beaches
There are over 20 free public beaches in Nice, plus 14 private beach clubs with lounge chairs, restaurants, bathrooms, lifeguards, etc.
A thing to note about the Nice beaches is that they’re not sandy. They all consist of rocks / fairly large pebbles, and are not super comfortable to walk on, even in sneakers. A Portuguese guy I talked to in Cannes, who lives in Nice with his family, said that between the waves and the slippery rocks, it can be quite challenging to get out of the water, especially for kids, and water shoes is a must. The beaches are perfect for chilling out on a sun lounger while admiring the views and sipping rosé though! 🙂 Or doing water sports, if that’s your thing.
Lido Plage
Ruhl Plage is the oldest managed beach-restaurant in Nice. It’s still owned by the Malacarne family that opened it in 1920.
Nice, France
Architecture and Public Art
I loved the architecture in Nice, both along the waterfront, and in old town. The colors of the buildings are gorgeous: turquoise, yellow, pale pink, deep red, and every other color you can think of. And there is a lot of public art all around the city.
How pretty are these pink stone buildings with blue and green shutters!
“Conversation à Nice” by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa
La Tête Carrée Library by Sacha Sosno
Above Left: One sculpture in the public art installation “Conversation à Nice” by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa (who also created “Nomad” in Antibes). There are 7 sculptures in all, representing the 7 continents. They are placed along the tram lines, and at night, they light up in different intervals in various colors, symbolizing communication between societies across the globe.
Above Right: La Tête Carrée Library by Sacha Sosno. It houses seven floors of the Louis Nucéra library administrative offices, and at night, it is illuminated and regularly changes color according to events.
Nice, France
Nice Old Port (Port Lympia)
Another favorite place of mine was the Old Port with all the colorful pointus (traditional Provençal fishing boats).
Whenever I got off the bus from Villefranche-sur-Mer at the Old Port, I liked to walk along the quay to first look at the boats, then up the hill, past the Monument aux Morts and around the corner to where the large I LOVE NICE sign sits (did I take a picture of it? Of course not! 😄). From there, you have a beautiful view of the entire Nice beachfront, and the Promenade des Anglais.
Nice, France
Le Plongeoir restaurant
If you walk the other way from the Old Port (towards Villefranche-sur-Mer), you’ll come across the famous Le Plongeoir restaurant. The food and service gets mixed reviews online, but you can’t beat the setting!
Nice, France
Promenade des Anglais & Hotel Le Negresco
Strolling along Promenade des Anglais is a fabulous way to spend an afternoon! Beautiful architecture on one side, and beach clubs and that amazing turquoise water on the other. And of course the iconic hotel Le Negresco.
Miles Davis by Niki de Saint Phalle outside hotel Le Negresco- Miles Davis by Niki de Saint Phalle outside hotel Le Negresco
Nice, France
Nice Old Town (Vieux Nice)
Old Town is rustic, cozy, and a bit of a maze. You can spend days exploring the narrow streets, and just when you think you’ve seen them all, you find a new one. My favorite things to do in Old Town was looking at architecture, window shopping (or actually shopping), and taking pictures (of course!)
Nice is called Nissa in the regional dialect Niçard.
There are so many cute little details and small specialty shops everywhere in old town. You can find everything from clothes, home decor, food and spices to soap (so much soap!).
Something for everyone… 🙂
One of my favorite stores in Nice, Trésors Publics (below), only sells classic products made in France. Each tag has a little image showing where in France the item is from, so cute!
French traditional items 100% made in France
Fenocchio ice cream
There are a lot of restaurants in Old Town too, and with all the tempting food around, you kind of have to stop for a snack. Since I was still allergic to most foods while I was there, my snacking was very limited, but I could eat ice cream, and my favorite place was Fenocchio.
It’s a family-owned business that have been making ice cream since 1966, and they have two stores in Old Town; one at 2 Pl. Rossetti, and one at 6 Rue de la Poissonnerie.
There’s close to a 100 different flavors to chose from (I think it’s over 100 if you count the sorbets as well!). Some are unusual and less appetizing-sounding (to me at least), like beer and tomato, but there are a lot of “normal” flavors as well.
My favorite was the violet – you could definitely taste the violet but it was not overpowering at all, just absolutely delicious!
Le Lavomatique
Another place that comes highly recommended is Le Lavomatique restaurant, formerly a laundromat, now a French-style tapas bar with local, seasonal dishes.
I didn’t try it, but loved the look of their “storefront”, and had to take a picture. 🙂
Nice, France
The Cours Saleya Market
The Cours Saleya street market is also in Old Town. It’s a flower, fruit and vegetable market on Tuesday – Sunday (Marché aux Fleurs) and they sell some other things too, like spices, honey, soaps, and the famous Chez Theresa socca (a chickpea flatbread). The socca is actually made a few minutes away from the market and delivered by bike.
On Mondays, Cours Saleya turns into a flea market with lots of interesting stuff. I had fun browsing and trying to resist adding another vintage camera to my collection. 🙂
Nice, France
Promenade du Paillon & Place Massena
When I wanted to explore the center of town, I would walk from the library bus stop through the Promenade du Paillon over to Place Massena. The promenade was opened in 2013 and has thousands of trees, shrubs, and plants, as well as a huge reflecting pool – the Miroir d’Eau – which sometimes puffs out a gentle mist, and sometimes shoots fountains of water high into the air. Kids love it!
There are several big shopping streets leading out from Place Massena, like Avenue Jean Medecin, where you find some of the larger stores like Galeries Lafayette, Fnac, H&M, Zara, and the shopping center Nice Étoile (a mall, really).
Fontaine du Soleil
Place Masséna is the main square in town, and in the middle of it sits the large Fountain of the Sun by Alfred Janniot, with bronze sculptures symbolizing Earth, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Saturn surrounding a huge statue of Apollo.
That Apollo statue has been the source of much controversy over the years, click through the link to read more about it, it’s really kind of hilarious! 🙂
Nice, France
Gare de Nice-Ville – The Main Train Station
At the end of Avenue Jean Medecin is the main train station in town, Nice Ville.
I love old train stations and while it’s not the most spectacular one on the planet, I did like Nice Ville, and it feels rather grand when you’re standing on the platform. It was designed by architect Louis-Jules Bouchot for the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée and completed in the mid-1800s.
Is Nice Safe?
Back in 1991 when I was studying in Aix-en-Provence, we were told Nice wasn’t safe, and only went through it on the way to and from the airport. I don’t know how true that was, but this time, my Uber driver from the airport said there had been “big changes”, and I walked around by myself all the time, with my camera out and ready for picture-taking, and never once did I feel unsafe.
Nice Weather (and sometimes not so nice 😉😄)
Nice supposedly has 300 days of sunshine a year, and it was sunny most of the time I was there, except for a few rainy and chilly days when I first arrived in mid-May. I was spared the winds that can come through though.
There are actually 32 different named winds, but the most famous are the Mistral, which can blow up to 115 mph and is said to drive people and animals crazy (love the legend behind it), and the Sirocco, which we did experience in 1991, when the streets of Aix-en-Provence all of a sudden had sand from the Sahara on them.
The Light
Nice also has that amazing Riviera light I keep going on about – bright but still soft and so very beautiful. There’s something about the quality of it that just erases your worries and fills you with joy. Life feels light, easy, and carefree. Henri Matisse said “When I understood that every morning I would see this light again, I couldn’t believe in my happiness… I decided not to leave Nice and I stayed there practically all my life.” I know exactly what he means.
The Prettiest French Riviera Travel Guide
If you’re looking for a travel guide to the French Riviera that can also double as a coffee table book, AND makes a great gift, check out “Travels through the French Riviera” by Virginia Johnson. It’s the prettiest travel guide book I’ve ever seen. It’s hardback, with a nice fabric cover, and is filled with great information, plus Virginia’s beautiful watercolor paintings.
Art Prints from Nice, France
If there’s a particular image in this post that you would like as a print but don’t see in my store, just get in touch and let me know which image it is, and the size you would like. I’m happy to do a custom print whenever possible.
MORE FRENCH RIVIERA TRAVEL posts ON THE BLOG
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