NICE

After Paris, it is the French city that I love most and I don't forget that until 1859 it was Italian and was ceded, together with Savoy, to the transalpine country because it had helped us defeat Austria in the second war of independence with the conquest of Lombardy. Furthermore, Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in Nice, the Italian hero who conquered the south the following year with the expedition of the Thousand and donated it to Italy after his meeting in Teano with King Vittorio Emanuele II. Garibaldi was very angry at the ceding of his city to France. When I visited Nice for the first time I observed that in the old city there are still street signs in Italian (and French) and that one of the most important squares in the city is dedicated to the Italian hero with his statue directed towards the Italy and which marks the entrance to the old city. However, what struck me most was the very long arched Promenade des Anglais close to the beautiful beach of white pebbles and with crystal clear and very blue water and then the beach was completely free, today I know that it is mainly occupied by beach establishments payment. Along the promenade you can admire the nineteenth-century Negresco hotel, a real gem. It seems that tourism in Nice was started and launched by English tourists who came to spend the winter in this city with its excellent winter climate. The old part of the city is very beautiful with its narrow streets, shops and the agricultural and flower market square. There are some beautiful and interesting squares in addition to the said Piazza Garibaldi, the Piazza Massena which has beautiful buildings with porticoes and the beautiful fountain of the sun with the statue of Apollo and jets of water and not far away the Miroir d'Eau another fountain even bigger. From that square you can walk along the large Paillon park until you come across the MAMAC, the museum of modern and contemporary art. Still to see in Nice: the noble Lascaris palace from 1600 with frescoed rooms and antique furniture, Saint Nicholas the largest Orthodox church in Europe outside Russia and similar to Saint Basil in Red Square in Moscow, dedicated to the Russian nobles who after the 1912 they took refuge in Nice to escape the Revolution. ​If you want to see a nice panorama of the city it is advisable to go up to the ruins of the castle at the southern end of the Promenade des Anglais. There is a park of ruins of various buildings destroyed by Louis XIV. To the north of the city there is the Cimiez district, one of the oldest with Roman ruins and the ancient monastery founded by the Benedictines and flanked by a monumental cemetery in which the great artist Matisse rests, to whom Nice has dedicated a large museum with many of his paintings , drawings and sculptures and next door there is also the museum dedicated to the Russian painter Marc Chagall, one of my favorites who lived for a long time in Saint Paul de Vence above Eze, a delightful coastal village. Chagall and his wife are buried in the small cemetery of the city where many artists lived and which today is full of art galleries and is worth a visit. Another attraction in Nice is the Parc Phoenix, a gigantic greenhouse with ten types of air conditioning and many exotic plants from all over the planet. Finally, Nice is famous for its carnival which lasts two weeks and is a spectacle with the battle of flowers which are thrown to the crowd along the Promenade des Anglais from allegorical floats hosting beautiful girls all decorated with flowers, like the floats themselves. But there is also another carnival, that of masked people with huge themed costumes and allegorical floats. Outside Nice it is worth visiting Antibes, an ancient and fortified city, today also very popular with VIPs for its beach clubs and its social life but which retains its ancient charm in the narrow streets of the historic center. Then Cannes, the city of the Film Festival with the palace that hosts it and the Croisette, the promenade with movie stars like in Hollywood and with a beautiful sandy beach overlooking it. On the hill instead, after a long climb you arrive in Grasse, the beautiful hill town, the French capital of perfumes, it is worth visiting the Fragonard factory. Finally a visit to the Principality of Monaco, to its Casino, at least outside and then a tour of the narrow streets of the historic center after also observing Montecarlo with its buildings and its tourist port. A visit to Nice and the French Riviera is truly recommended ​