Nice Walking Tour: Historical Highlights from Vieux Nice to Castle Hill

(55 reviews)

Nice audio tour: Nice Walking Tour: Historical Highlights from Vieux Nice to Castle Hill

This is a 1.2mi walking tour

It takes an average of 120 mins to complete.

Nice

France

$11.99

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About the Tour

Nice is a must-see on the French Riviera, with a long list of attractions, beaches and museums. And the best way to explore the city is, without a doubt, on foot. On this two-hour walking tour, you’ll see the city’s most interesting sites, including magnificent buildings like the Opéra de Nice, Negresco Hotel, Palais de la Préfecture and Castle Hill.

Our tour starts on Place Masséna where I’ll shed light on the controversial Fontaine du Soleil, a fountain featuring a statue of Apollo. You’ll stop off in Esplanade Georges Pompidou before making your way to the city’s flower market and Palais de Justice. There, I’ll tell you about one of France’s most famous criminals, Albert Spaggiari, who was also the mayor’s official photographer. I’ll show you one of the most beautiful squares in the city, Place Rossetti, where you’ll find Nice Cathedral and hear how the area was given its UNESCO World Heritage status.

On this tour, you’ll have a chance to:

Find out why some residents of Nice wake up to the morning sun gleaming off Apollo’s butt cheeks every day
Hear about the hyper-realistic style of painting called “Trompe-l’œil”, meaning “deceiving the eye”
Learn about the adventures of the professional gangsters, hired by Albert Spaggiari, who robbed a famous French bank
Discover some intimate details about ‘the devil’s violinist’, Niccolo Paganini
Take in Nice’s iconic coastline and find out why it is called Promenade des Anglais
See breathtaking views of Old Nice from Castle Hill where our tour ends

By the end of this tour, you’ll have learned about the history, art, politics and social life of the beautiful city of Nice.

Ready to see it for yourself? Fantastic! Join us on this wonderful walking tour of Nice’s Old Town. And remember, the best things in life really are done on a walk.

Tour Producer

Riviera Bar Crawl Tours

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Preview Location

Location 1

Start tour and introduction at Place Massena

Bonjour. My name is Tom Johnson and I'm a tour guide at Riviera Bar Crawl Tours. Today, in this audio I'm going to talk to you about the history, art, politics and social life of the beautiful city of Nice. We'll be visiting the Place Massena, the Opera House, flower market, P... Bonjour. My name is Tom Johnson and I'm a tour guide at Riviera Bar Crawl Tours. Today, in this audio I'm going to talk to you about the history, art, politics and social life of the beautiful city of Nice. We'll be visiting the Place Massena, the Opera House, flower market, Palais de la Préfecture, Palais de Justice, Old Town, Promenade des Anglais and end at the top of the Castle Hill. Make sure to drink plenty of water to keep you hydrated and happy. Take the tour at your own pace and enjoy the experience. Let's begin!

Make sure you're standing with the Fontaine Miroir d’Eau, the large water feature, to your right.

You're standing in the Place Massena, the historic marketplace and meeting point of Nice. Look around and lap it up – you're standing in the fifth largest city in France – we start with Paris, then Lyon, Marseilles and Toulouse before we get to Nice, the capital of the Alpes Maritimes department. However, it's the second most expensive city in France after Paris – if you haven’t discovered that yet, give it time alright – from a cup of coffee to a pint of beer, both will cost you more than you might like.

It's also considered the cultural centre of the South, inspiring Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Nietzsche, Aragon, Tolstoy, Berlioz, Bizet and Paganini – we'll be returning to some of these greats along the tour today. Once again, after Paris, Nice has the highest concentration of museums and art galleries, coming in at a solid 19, as well as a collection of artist workshops and illustration houses dotted around the city.

Looking straight ahead from Place Massena with the Fontaine Miroir d’Eau on your right, you'll see this very colourful group of buildings lining the way to the Avenue Jean Medecin. These buildings don’t look particularly French – in fact, they have a real Italian design to them, especially inspired by Turin with its neoclassical, lively form of architecture, built in 1824. As you explore Nice, you'll notice that Nice has a very strong Italian influence – in fact, Nice was on the brink of joining Italy as serious nation-building took place in Europe in the 1800s, and I'll explain later why we're stuck speaking French here, ever so close to the Italy border. However, the legacy of Nice’s relationship with Italy has left this city with a large Italian population as well as significant Italian influence in architecture, music, cuisine, language, art and culture.

Returning back to Avenue Jean Medecin, where you can find many of the famous retail stores as well as Nice’s shopping centre called Nice Etoile. Splintering off from either side of the avenue are much more boutiques and independent retailers, so if you plan to go shopping on holiday, this area may well be up your street. At the end, you can see the Galerie Lafayette, where all of our designer brands live, like Dior, Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Valentino. If you want to spend a lot of money very quickly, this is the place for you. And if you return at night time, you'll see an assortment of lights hanging above Medecin. Contrary to what you may first think, they're not some forgotten Christmas decorations. They're actually a poem written in Morse code, created by the conceptual artist Kerasale and are part of the Open Sky Art Museum.

In front of the Avenue Jean Medecin, on either side of the tramway, you can make out seven figures on podiums, just relaxing and soaking up the Nicois sun. Part of Nice’s Open Sky Art Museum which stretches along the tramline, they were created by Jaume Plensa, a Catalan artist specialising in monumental art. These seven characters represent seven continents and the communication between the different communities of today’s society. The name of this creation is “conversations with Nice” and they capture the international character of the city where everyone, from all over the world, is welcome and celebrated. At night they are illuminated in bright colours which shift smoothly, all independently of one another. They'll all be different colours, except two of them, as if they are in conversation with each other.

In front of all this is this green space to your right and left, also known as the Promenade de Paillon or La Coulee Verte. The park was opened in 2013 and was named after the river Paillon, which still runs a few meters under it. It's a lovely band of green, running for 1.3km between the old town and the new development, and is filled with a number of playgrounds, sculptures and water fountains, including a replica of Michelangelo’s David at the far end. Let's speak about one specific installation which you've been standing next to. There water display on your right is called the Miroir d’Eau, or the mirror of water. 120 jets of water spring up from the ground for 5 to 10 minutes, at which point the local children will all come out and play in the water. As the water jets finish and the water settles, it creates a fantastic mirror effect on the ground which reflects the sky, the buildings and the trees around.

Let's get going. Turn so that the mirror of water is on your left and walk away from shopping district towards the fountain you can see in front of you.

The buildings on this side, circling the fountain and statue, are used instead for living. They are really beautiful apartments, but they will set you back a long way each month. On top of the steep price, the people living inside also have to conform to three specific rules. Rule one – no coloured curtains. Rule two – nothing can hang out of the window or disrupt the overall façade of the building. Rule three – there is no nudity allowed at any point within these buildings, which as you can imagine, certainly has its drawbacks. How they control and punish building this last specific rule is unclear. Equally, the irony of this rule is that just outside there is a bloody massive statue of a naked man, which is pretty difficult to miss. The residents wake up to the morning sun gleaming off his butt cheeks every day. This man is Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, appropriate for Nice which gets over 300 days of sun a year.

Keep making your way towards him. Read More

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Major Landmarks

Ascenseur du Château
old nice
Place Massena
Fontaine du Soleil
Esplanade Georges Pompidou
Opéra de Nice
Marché Aux Fleurs - Cours Saleya - Nice
Palais de la Préfecture
Palais de Justice
Promenade des Anglais

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Getting There

Route Overview

VoiceMap tours follow a route from a set starting point. It’s how we give turn-by-turn directions and tell a story greater than the sum of its parts.

Start location
1 bis Pl. Massena, 06000 Nice, France
Total distance

2km
Final location
06300 Nice, France
Distance back to start location

810.47m

Directions to Starting Point

The tour begins on Massena Square (Place Masséna Plassa Carlou Aubert) in front of Fontaine Miroir d’Eau. Please, follow the itinerary as it has been conceived for an optimal visit.

Take a bottle of fresh water with you.

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

Recommended restaurants
La Rotonde
The Bistro is open from 12:00 to 02:00 pm and from 7:00 to 10:00 pm in the low season (except during end of year festivities) ; and from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm in the high season.
For more information and reservation :

33 (0)4 93 16 64 11 [email protected]

L’Acchiardo
Set in Old Town, L'Acchiardo serves local staples to locals and visitors in a bubbling scrum of a place.
Address: 38 Rue Droite
Contact: +33 (0)4 93 85 51 16
Opening times: Mon-Fri, 12 noon-2pm, 7pm-10pm. Shut throughout August
Reservations: vital
Payment type: cards not accepted

Best time of day

In the morning start at 10 a.m. In summer, try to avoid the overwhelming heat at midday.

Precautions

Wear sunscreen in summer and drink plenty of water.

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“Great app. walk around at your own pace, stop where you want, move on or speed up when you want. Read the script before you go or during the commentary, speed it up or replay it. Repeat the tour whenever you like.”