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DISCOVER FRANCE

French Riviera: 10 hidden gems in Nice that tourists miss

Nice, on the French Riviera, is one of France's most-visited cities, but there's a lot more to it than the beach and the Promenade des Anglais. We asked author and Nice resident of 22 years Jeanne Oliver to share some of her favourite off-the-beaten-track spots.

Published: 23 June 2022 11:05 CEST
Updated: 27 October 2022 11:37 CEST
French Riviera: 10 hidden gems in Nice that tourists miss
Thee's more to see in Nice than the beach. Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP

1. Villa Les Palmiers  

When Nice voted to join France in 1860, the celebration was held at this sprawling estate with Napoleon III in attendance.

Later, an English art dealer bought the property and redecorated with tons of imported marble christening it the Palais de Marbre. Now housing the Municipal Archives, the villa’s splendor is vividly apparent on the southern side where a vast manicured garden made up of reflecting pools and statuary recall the villa’s heyday. On the neo-classical facade is a loggia engraved with John Keats’ reminder that “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”.  

Stroll the shady path to the right of the garden and marvel at the ornate dovecote which served as a status symbol and also a source of fresh squab. 

7/9 avenue de Fabron

2. Musée International d’Art Naïf 

Nearby is this fun museum devoted to naïve art. Paintings, sculptures, drawings and posters trace the evolution of this popular and accessible art form through the works of its most famous painters: Henri Rousseau, Grandma Moses, Ivan and Josip Generalic and many others.

The museum is lodged in the former Chateau Sainte Hélène which once belonged to perfumer François Coty. Linger in the estate’s park marked by the colorful sculptures of Frederic Lanovsky.   

23 avenue de Fabron

READ ALSO 10 things you didn’t know about Nice

3. The Castle Hill Cemeteries

The two cemeteries on the northern slope of Castle Hill – Christian and Jewish – are a testament to the remarkable cultural, historical and artistic diversity of Nice. 

The 2,250 tombs in the Christian cemetery display an exuberant mixture of artistic styles from sober to bizarre. Wander through the busts, medallions, sad statues, crosses, angels and crying maidens to the Gastaud family tomb where the angel of death hovers over a tomb half-opened by stone hands. It’s hard to miss the 12-metre high Grosso tomb which displays his wife and two children topped by a benevolent angel.

The adjacent Jewish cemetery commemorates the Jews from Nice who perished in the Holocaust as well as local Resistance heroes.

Notice the unusual Asseo tomb adorned with train, plane, car and pine tree sculptures. It is the tomb of a seven-year old boy who asked his parents for his favourite items. Unable to comply with his dying request at the time, they honoured his wishes in death with this moving testament to parental love.

4. Saint Pons Abbey Church

The Saint Pons Abbey is one of the oldest abbeys in the south of France, built in the eighth century on the spot where Saint Pontius of Cimiez was martyred.

Although the abbey is now a part of Pasteur Hospital and is not open for visits, the adjacent church is proudly open to display the results of its recent restoration.

Dating from 1725, the church is a shining example of Nice’s baroque architecture. Highlights of the brightly painted interior include lateral chapels decorated with twisted columns, a painting behind the altar depicting the martyrdom of Saint Pontius, and an exquisite crypt that contains the relics of the martyred saint.

5. Gloria Mansions

Only steps from the well-known Musée des Beaux Arts, lies this Art Deco masterpiece, named a historic monument in 1989. From a distance the grayish facade looks like any other apartment building.

A closer look reveals that the tinted concrete glistens with encrusted oyster shells and the balconies curve like waves in the sea. On the top floor sculpted raptors, inspired by the Chrysler building in New York, guard the building.

Behind the magnificent entrance  gate (usually open) lies a courtyard with more stylish stuccoes and bas-reliefs. Peek through the building’s entrance to admire a mammoth glass-mosaic on the opposite side.

Just visible is a monumental concrete staircase supported by green-tinted columns that spiral up to a glass roof. From the bronze hand-crafted letter boxes to the intricate railings and marble floors, Gloria Mansions is the height of 1930s design.

123 rue de France

6. Chateau Valrose

Lucky are the students at the University of Nice who study at this castle-park turned campus. Built in 1870 for a Russian baron and financier, the castle exterior is a festival of spires, pointed arches and massive staircases while the inside boasts crystal chandeliers, frescoes and a 400-seat concert hall.

The park spreads over 10 hectares on Cimiez hill with a Gothic entrance gate on the eastern side to welcome Cimiez’s aristocratic 19th-century visitors. Until the Baron’s death in 1881, the finest musicians of the day performed at the Chateau. 

Although the chateau and park are usually closed to random visitors, the University of Nice hosts a regular cycle of concerts and workshops that are open to the public.

28 Avenue Valrose

7. Villa Paradiso

The stately Villa Paradiso and its vast gardens were built in 1881 when everyone with a title or a sizable bank account (preferably both) wanted to stay on the trendy boulevard de Cimiez. 

Later it became the residence of Baron Etienne Van Zuylen and his wife Helene, née de Rothschild, who created the Nice chapter of the Society for the Protection of Animals. 

After WWII the city of Nice acquired the estate, turning it first into the Conservatory of Music and then trying to sell it. An outcry ensued, the Mayor relented and soon this historic property will house a cancer institute. 

24 boulevard de Cimiez

8. Hotel Alhambra

Horseshoe arches and minarets seem out of place in Cimiez but Orientalism was all the rage at the turn of the 20th century. Built in 1900, the building is also unusual as the product of a female entrepreneur, Madame Emilie Gabrielle Sabatier.

This clever lady built her hotel in a neo-Moorish style as a way to attract an international clientele. Business boomed until the outbreak of WWI when it was requisitioned as a military hospital. Guests never returned in force and in 1947 it became an apartment building.

48 boulevard de Cimiez

9. Maison de la Treille

This captivating old house with a luxuriant vine cascading down the front may be the Old Town’s most Instagramable spot.

Treille means “vine” and this one has been here at least since the turn of the 20th century. At one time the buidling was a tavern and then it became a centre for Nice’s language and traditions. Around 1930 artist Raoul Dufy depicted the house in a painting, Le Mai à Nice which now hangs in the Musée des Beaux Arts. 

9 rue Saint Augustin

10. Archaeological Crypt

A visit to the archaeological “crypt” is a fascinating peek into medieval Nice. Before Nice’s walls were destroyed in 1706, the Old Town was protected by a system of gates, towers and bastions, none of which are visible today – at least not above ground.

When work began on Nice’s tramway in 2007, workers were startled to discover the intact remains of fortified Nice including a moat and an aqueduct. The crypt stretches over 2,000 square metres under Place Garibaldi with a system of walkways to facilitate visits. Visits must be reserved in advance and include a guided tour (in French). 

Place Jacques Toja

Jeanne is a veteran travel writer who has resided in Nice for 22 years. She’s the author of Nice Uncovered: Walks Through the Secret Heart of a Historic City and runs the travel-planning website frenchrivieratraveller.com. Her passion is exploring the many facets of Nice’s fascinating history and culture.

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CULTURE

How many of France’s ’10 most iconic women’ can you name?

Ten monumental golden statues representing French women from the worlds of art, literature, sport and politics are shortly to go on display in Paris - but how many of these famous names do you recognise?

Published: 18 September 2024 15:34 CEST
How many of France's '10 most iconic women' can you name?

They were one of the early highlights of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, emerging from the River Seine near the Alexandre-III bridge as the flotilla of boats carrying international athletes passed.

Now golden status of the 10 famous women have been made and are on display in Cour d’honneur of the French National Assembly until October 5th, while more permanent homes for them are discussed. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo hopes to install them along rue de La Chapelle in the 18th arrondissement.

It will go some way towards closing that statuery gap – there are currently around 260 statues of men in the French capital, and just 40 women.

This temporary free exhibition will enable visitors to admire these polymer resin sculptures, created by 3D printing and designed to withstand the elements, by registering in advance on the Assemblée nationale website.

But, who are the women they celebrate and honour? Some might be familiar to international readers while others are barely known outside France.

Christine de Pizan (1364-1431) 

The oldest of the inspirational women remembered at the Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony by some distance.

De Pizan was France’s first woman of letters, the first woman to earn a living as a writer. 

She started her career in the court of King Charles VI, following the deaths of her father and husband in rapid succession, leaving the family – she had three children – without a traditional source of income.

Her works were forgotten for several centuries, but resurfaced in the 1980s thanks to the rise of feminist studies – and, today, she is revered as one of history’s earliest feminists. Her most famous work, La cité des dames (The City of Ladies), clinically dismantles patriarchal discrimination and misogyny.

Jeanne Barret (1740-1807)

Explorer and botanist Barret was born into poverty in rural Burgundy – and went on to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, while working as a ‘valet’ to doctor and botanist Philibert Commerson. 

At the time, the French navy banned women from their vessels, so she had to undertake the journey around the world in disguise, and was known as Jean. Her tireless work – she took charge of an expedition in Brazil when Commerson was unfit to work – earned her the respect of the crew and the expedition’s captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.

She and Commerson kept her true identity – and their relationship – secret for a year. In fact, such was his respect for her that Bougainville, after whom the botanist had named a plant, later wrote to King Louis XVI and requested that she be honoured with the title femme extraordinaire.

Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793)

Playwright, activist, abolitionist, disheartened revolutionary – feminist icon de Gouges is best known for her  Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen), written in scathing response to the Revolutionary Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen and demanding full legal, political and social assimilation of women.

She also wrote in favour of the abolition of slavery, and was initially in favour of the 1789 Revolution – but grew disenchanted by the lack of progress of women’s rights in its aftermath. 

De Gouges was executed by guillotine in 1793, after writing repeated literary attacks on the regime and leader Maximilien Robespierre.

Louise Michel (1830-1905)

If ever you see anarchists raise a black flag during a protest, remember Louise Michel – the teacher, anarchist and leading light of the Paris Commune, a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris from 18th March to 28th May, 1871.

She was transported to Nouvelle-Caledonie in punishment for her role in the Commune. There, she took up the plight of the indigenous Kanak people, taking their side in a revolt in 1878. 

In 1880, amnesty was granted to those who had participated in the Paris Commune. Michel returned to Paris, her revolutionary passion undiminished. And she proudly waved a black flag at a jobless demonstration in Paris in March 1883 – it is, historians say, the first use of the modern anarchists’ symbol.

Alice Guy (1873-1968)

French cinema remembers the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis. It remembers the visionary Georges Méliès, and early directors Marcel Pagnol and Jean Renoir – the son of the artist. And it honours Godard, Truffaut and Rohmer. The list of male cineastes in France is long.

Alice Guy routinely gets lost in the shuffle. She shouldn’t. She was the first woman to direct a film – La Fée aux choux in 1896; one of the first to make a movie with a distinct narrative; and, for a decade between 1896 to 1906, was probably the only female filmmaker in the world.

Guy was a cinema pioneer in many ways. She experimented with Gaumont’s Chronophone sync-sound system, colour-tinting, interracial casting, and special effects. 

Her Hollywood film A Fool and His Money – made with a wholly African-American cast – is considered to have historical and aesthetic significance and is preserved at the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute.

And her 1906 33-minute film La vie du Christ, which tells the story of Jesus Christ in 25 tableaux based on the gospels, is sometimes cited as the first ‘epic’ movie. As was the case with many Guy  films, it was for a long time wrongly attributed to Victorin Jasset – her assistant in charge of directing exterior scenes and managing the extras.

Alice Milliat (1884-1957)

There’s still a vast distance to travel, but women’s sport might not even be where it is today without Milliat. 

While noted misogynist Pierre de Coubertin – he once famously said that a woman’s role at the Olympic Games should be to crown the winners – gets all the Olympic glory, Milliat was responsible for getting the men-only club to, finally, allow women to compete.

She founded the Fédération Française Sportive Féminine in 1917. She helped organise the 1922 Women’s World Games – which were originally called the Jeux Olympiques Féminins and which ran for four editions until 1934, and which prompted the International Olympic Committee to slowly and belatedly allow female competition.

She also managed a French women’s association football team that toured the United Kingdom in 1920. In 2021, a commemorative statue of Milliat was unveiled at the French Olympic Committee’s headquarters in Paris.

Paulette Nardal (1896-1985)

Journalist, activist, woman of letters and pioneer of ‘black intellectualism’, Nardal, who was born in Martinique, was also the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne.

In October 1931, she founded the journal La Revue du Monde Noir (Review of the Black World) with her sisters; French novelist Louis Jean Finot; Haitian scholar Léo Sajous; and Clara W Shepard, an African-American teacher and translator. 

On her return to Martinique in 1944, Nardal founded Le Rassemblement féminin. Le Rassemblement féminin, one of two feminist organisations at the time whose goals were to increase the number of women who voted in the 1945 elections.

Then, from 1946 to 1948 Nardal was a delegate to the United Nations, working with both the UN Department for Non-Autonomous Territories and the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

De Beauvoir’s 1949 work The Second Sex is considered a “trailblazing work in feminist philosophy”, and is a foundation work of modern feminism. 

But she considered herself a writer rather than a philosopher. She won the 1954 Prix Goncourt, the 1975 Jerusalem Prize, and the 1978 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1961, 1969 and 1973.

More controversially, she lost a teaching job amid accusations of inappropriate behaviour and she and long-time partner Jean-Paul Sartre campaigned for the release of people convicted of child sex offences.

Simone Veil (1927-2017)

Simone Veil survived Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen and went on to become one of France’s most respected politicians, steering through landmark laws to liberalise contraception and abortion.

She is best known for leading the successful campaign to legalise abortion in France – despite vicious abuse and threats – as the country’s first female minister of health in 1975. 

Veil later became the first female president of the European Parliament, where she served for three years, before returning to work for the French government again.

She was given an honorary damehood from the British government, and awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion D’Honneur in France. She died in 2017, and became just the fourth women to be interred in the Parthenon, after scientist Marie Curie, and two resistance fighters Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion.

In 2021, Josephine Baker was also honoured at the Parthenon, nearly half a century after her death.

Gisèle Halimi (1927-2020)

“Politics is too serious a matter to be left to men alone.” Tunisian-born lawyer, feminist activist and co-founder of equality movement Choisir la cause des femmes said that in 1978. 

In early 1972, a year after Choisir was founded, Halimi successfully defended a teenager who was on trial for illegally aborting a pregnancy after she had been raped in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny.

The teenager’s mother and three others were also charged with conspiring to commit the illegal abortion.

It was a landmark case that paved the way for Simone Veil to persuade France’s parliament to legalise abortions in France two years later.

In 1981, Halimi was elected as an MP, where she was a vociferous campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty, and tabled bills promoting women’s rights.

Four years later, she was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of France to UNESCO, and, in 1989, she was appointed special advisor to the French delegation to the UN General Assembly in New York.

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