Where to Stay in Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

What is Nice known for?

Nice is known as one of the great cities of the French Riviera, strung along the Mediterranean coast at the foot of the French Alps. The Promenade des Anglais runs the length of its seafront, the waterfront that helped win the city a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Painters loved the light here, and the Musée Matisse and the Musée Marc-Chagall keep their work.

Nice is the second-largest city of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, after Marseille. Sun, sea, and art define it.

What are the main landmarks in Nice?

Nice's landmarks run from the seafront to the hills. The Promenade des Anglais is the city's signature, a long seafront walk above the beach. Art fills the museums: the Musée Matisse, the Musée Marc-Chagall, and the modern collections of the musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain de Nice.

Above the old town, the Colline du Château gives the widest view, while Cimiez holds the Roman ruins of Cemenelum and the Monastère de Cimiez. Terra Amata records the city's prehistoric past.

What is the history of Nice?

Nice has been lived in since deep prehistory. On the eastern edge of the city, Terra Amata and the Grotte du Lazaret preserve traces of some of the earliest known human habitation on this coast. Much later the Romans built their town, Cemenelum, on the hill of Cimiez, where the Monastère de Cimiez and Roman ruins still stand.

The medieval old town grew below the Colline du Château, the rocky height that long guarded the harbour below. Layer sits on layer here. Nice has always looked as much to the mountains and to Italy as to the rest of France beyond.

It lies only a short way from the French-Italian border, and a monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi recalls the city's long ties across it. In the cooler seasons foreign visitors came for the mild coast, and the seafront they favoured became the Promenade des Anglais. In 2021 that seafront and a large part of the old city joined the UNESCO World Heritage List.

As the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department, Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast, after Marseille.

Where is Nice?

Nice sits on the Mediterranean Sea, on the southeastern coast of France, where the French Alps drop almost to the water. It is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department and one of the main cities of the French Riviera. The principality of Monaco lies a short way east along the coast, and the French-Italian border is not much further.

Hills crowd the shore. The sea lies on one side and the mountains at its back, leaving Nice little flat ground to spare.

What is the climate of Nice?

Nice has a mild Mediterranean climate that made its name. Winters are gentle for Europe, which is why visitors once came here for the cold season and gave the seafront its English name. Summers are hot, dry, and bright over the Mediterranean Sea.

Rain falls mostly in short autumn bursts. Shielded by the French Alps at its back, the coast stays warmer than the mountains just inland.

How do you get to Nice?

Nice is one of the easiest cities on the French Riviera to reach. Its airport sits just west of the centre along the coast, among the busiest in the south of France and the main way in for most travellers. Trains hug the coast.

They run along the Mediterranean, linking Nice with Monaco to the east, the French-Italian border beyond, and Marseille far to the west. Drivers take the coast road or the motorway through the hills.