Nice

Promenade des Anglais

The single defining walk in Nice, and the reason the city is on the World Heritage list. Go at dusk, when it stops being a postcard and becomes the town's living room.

Port Lympia

Port Lympia (Lou Pouòrt)

The one part of central Nice that still works for a living, and the best evening walk in the city that isn't the Promenade.

Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate

Fifteen free minutes inside the most Italian building in Nice — ten guild chapels of competitive Baroque excess, one street from an ice cream.

Hôtel Negresco

A palace hotel that behaves like a private museum. The Eiffel-framed dome and the Tsar's chandelier are worth the price of a coffee you didn't want.

Palais Lascaris

Nice's best Baroque interior and 500 historic instruments, for €5, up a staircase you can't see from the street.

Villa Masséna (Musée Masséna)

The one museum that explains why Nice looks like this. Also the coolest, quietest room within a minute's walk of the Promenade in August.

Musée Matisse

Matisse's own collection in Matisse's own neighborhood, in an olive grove next to a Roman arena. The Vence chapel maquettes alone justify the bus ride.

Musée national Marc Chagall

Seventeen monumental biblical canvases in the building Chagall designed to hold them — and the blue stained-glass concert hall almost nobody sits down in.

Cours Saleya

Nice's market since the Middle Ages, and still the best hour you can spend in the old town — as long as you shop it in the morning and eat lunch elsewhere.

Colline du Château

The view that explains the city's geography in one glance — and a free lift means there's no excuse not to take it.

Chez Thérésa

The socca benchmark, from an 1867 oven, wheeled to the market every fifteen minutes. Under €5 and non-negotiable.

La Merenda

A two-star chef cooking Niçois classics on twenty stools with paper tablecloths, for under €45. Nothing else in the old town is close.

Chez Pipo

Chez Pipo

The best socca in Nice, from a 1933 wood-fired oven, for under six euros a portion.

Chez Acchiardo

Four generations, one family, the entire Niçois repertoire — including the dishes nobody cooks for tourists. Book days ahead.

Quartier des Antiquaires

Quartier des Antiquaires / Village Ségurane

France's third-biggest antiques cluster, five minutes from a working harbour, and almost nobody visiting Nice knows it's there.