The French Riviera

The Riviera rewards a fixed address. Taken town by town, the coast can feel like a procession of car parks and harbour terraces; taken from one base, it settles into a rhythm of mornings, excursions and returns. Nice is that base: a city in its own right, set along the Baie des Anges, with the coast's best-known places a short drive or ride from its seafront.

The city's shape is declared by the Promenade des Anglais, which runs for seven kilometres along the bay, from the airport side of the shore toward the old town and the port. Below it lies the pebble beach, and across the water the bay curves away toward Antibes. In July 2021 Nice was placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List as a Riviera Winter Resort Town, a listing covering 522 hectares, the whole coastline from the Promenade to Mont Boron, and the hills of Cimiez behind it. The recognition fits a city built around the pleasures of being beside the sea.

Inland from the seafront, the old town keeps the city's older measure. At its heart, the Cours Saleya sets the pace of the day, as the Nice tourist office describes it, with its flower market, its terraces and its stalls of fruit, vegetables and regional produce; the market is counted among the 100 most picturesque in France, and on Mondays the flowers give way to antiques. Above the old town, the park on Castle Hill looks out over the entire Baie des Anges.

For art, climb to Cimiez. The Musée Matisse, inaugurated in 1963, occupies a seventeenth-century villa there and holds a collection formed by donations from Matisse himself, who lived and worked in Nice from 1917 to 1954, and from his heirs. Nearby stands the Musée national Marc Chagall, built around the seventeen paintings of the Biblical Message that Chagall gave to the French State in 1966 and inaugurated in 1973, during the artist's lifetime.

The morning swim belongs to Villefranche-sur-Mer, immediately east of Nice. Its bay is one of the deepest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, reaching depths of 98 metres between the Cape of Nice and Cap Ferrat, and it holds its calm early in the day. The town's main beach, the Plage des Marinières, runs for 700 metres along the north end of the bay, below the railway line. Go early, swim before the beach fills, and take coffee in the old town afterwards.

East of Villefranche, the road becomes the day's second pleasure. Three corniches run in parallel between Nice and Menton at three altitudes: the Basse along the water, the Moyenne halfway up the slope, and the Grande along the ridge. Take the Moyenne Corniche to Èze, around ten kilometres from Nice, crossing the Col de Villefranche on the way; the road is at its best before the day's traffic builds. The Maison's own account of the three corniches sets out the full loop.