Cannes and Nice On the Shores of the Mediterranean

The City Known for the Cannes Film Festival



Cannes is located in the Alpes-Maritimes Department and hosts the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This is a seaside resort with private beaches, elegant hotels, fashionable restaurants, and marinas with luxury yachts.

Boulevard de la Croisette is one of the most fashionable streets on the French Riviera. It is lined with palms, villas, boutiques, and hotels.

The beachfront promenade is a wonderful place to stroll and get fantastic views of the sea.

Pont Pierre Canto has many luxury yachts docked at the harbor.

Port de la Pointe Croisette is the departure point for regattas that are organized by the Yacht Club of Cannes.

Port Palm Beach is a lovely public beach located on the western side of Pointe Croisette.

The Old Town or Le Suquet sits atop the slopes of Mont Chevalier above the bay. It is a representation of the original fishing village. The quarter is traffic free with narrow cobblestone alleys, pedestrian staircases, and historic remnants. 

The 15th-century Eglise Notre Dame d’Esperance and the 11th-century Tour du Mont Chevalier watchtower dominated the skyline. You can get amazing views of the beach and bar from the tower.

The oldest shopping street here is Rue Meynadier, known for its gourmet boutiques.

The Palais des Festivals et des Congres is the venue for the Cannes Film Festival. The building was completed in 1982 and is used for events, conferences, concerts, and festivals. It is a complex of buildings.

The Musee des Explorations du Monde sits on a hill overlooking the Bay of Cannes. It is a classified Historical Monument and was once a monastery for Lerins Monks. It is surrounded by a Mediterranean garden and offers fantastic views of the coastline and the sea. The museum has a collection of antiquities from Mediterranean civilizations, pre-Columbian primitive art, and 19th-century Provencal landscape paintings. There are some exotic art objects from Oceania and the Himalayas and an extensive collection of musical instruments from around the world. You can climb to the top of the 12th-century tower for breathtaking views of Cannes and the surrounding area.

There are public beaches with golden sand such as Plage de la Bocca.

Plage du Moure Rouge is great for water sports such as paddleboarding, windsurfing, and kayaking.

Plage des Rochers is great for snorkeling. 

The Old Port or Vieux Port is located below the historic Le Suquet quarter. It is used as a dock for yachts and other sailboats and is the launching point for the Royal Regatta.

Allees de la Liberte north of the port has ancient alleyways lined with shady plane trees.

Le Centre d’Art La Malmaison is dedicated to contemporary art and is housed in the former Grand Hotel from 1863. The museum hosts temporary exhibitions with artwork from famous 20th and 21st- century artists, who found inspiration in the Cote d’Azur.

La Croix-des-Gardes Nature Park offers fantastic views of the coastline. It has a forest and is classified as a Sensitive Nature Site. The park is located on a hillside above the Golfe de la Napoule. There are hiking trails that wind through the forest with viewpoints along the way. The trails also stretch through an arboretum with more than 40 varieties of mimosa.

The Capital of the French Riviera

One of the nicest places you could visit is the capital of the French Riviera, Nice. It lies on the pebbly shores of the Baie des Angles. Nice was founded by the Greeks and later on, in the 19th century became a retreat for the elite of Europe. There is a lot of modern in the city but it still maintains its Old World charm. Visitors come for the beauty, the culture, the weather and the beaches. 

Take a walk back into history and step into Vieux Nice the old town. It hasn’t changed very much since the 1700s. See the thriving and enjoyable Cue the cours Saleva, the market square. It is best known for its flower market and has a bustling fruit and vegetable market as well. On Mondays, you can pick up a bargain or two at the flea market. As you walk along you’ll see food shops, delis, boutiques and bars filling the many small lanes. At the place, St. Francois is a fish market. Visitors are amazed to come upon the Baroque Palais Lacaris dating from the 17th century. Other architectural wonders are the Cathedrale Ste-Reparate, honoring the city’s patron saint and the Chapelle de la Misericorde.

People enjoy strolling along the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais created by Nice’s English colony in 1822. It is busy all day long but in the evenings people are especially delighted by the lovely sunset views. 

Of interest is the facade of the Hotel Negresco, built in 1912 and the art deco Palais de la Mediterranee. The promenade goes along the entire Baie de Anges and has a cycle and skating lane. If you like skates and scooters can be rented. 

The southern end of the Old Town borders the Ponchettes market stalls at the Cours Saleya, where fishmongers and grocers sell fresh products. This traditional open-air Provençal Market is known as the Marché aux Fleurs because it includes a wide selection of flowers for sale. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and other food products are also sold from outdoor stalls with colorful striped awnings. The Marché aux Fleurs is held every day except Mondays, from 6 am until the afternoon.

Exploring the Old Town further, north of the Cours Saleya, tourists will come across the Palais de la Préfecture, the Cathedral of Nice (Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate), and another noteworthy 17th-century Baroque church. The Palais de la Préfecture on Rue Alexandre Mari is a splendid Neoclassical building, also known as Le Palais des Rois Sardes because it was the former palace of the Kings of Sardinia.

Exemplifying 17th-century Provençal Baroque style, the Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate has an exquisitely decorative interior, featuring Corinthian columns with gilded detailing and many little cherub figurines in friezes surrounding grand pieces of artwork. 

Just a few steps away is the Eglise Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur, prized for its delicate frescoes and impressive sculpture collection.

The Musee Matisse has a fascinating assortment of artworks by Matisse that document the artist’s stylistic evolution. Among the artworks are oil paintings, drawings, sculptures, tapestries and Matisse’s signature famous paper cut-outs. This permanent collection has found its home in a red-ochre 17th-century Genoese villa that overlooks an olive-tree studded park. In the futuristic basement building are temporary exhibitions. Matisse lived close by in the monumental Regina building dating from the 1940s. This building was originally the winter palace of Queen Victoria and once converted Matisse had two apartments – one he used for living and one for a studio. The artist died here in 1954 and is buried at the Monastere de Cimiez cemetery, across the park from the museum.

Near the Matisse Museum, the Monastère Notre-Dame-de-Cimiez is nestled in the stylish Cimiez neighborhood, directly above the ancient ruins of Cemenelum. Below the monastery are vestiges of the Roman baths and amphitheater. The monastery was taken over by Franciscans in the 16th century. Today it is listed as a Historical Monument and has a museum that provides information about the history of local Franciscan monks. The grounds are beautiful with Mediterranean trees and a rose garden. 

Arenes de Cimiez Park is located across from the Cimiez Monastery and has a grove of hundred-year-old olive trees. It is a beautiful place for strolling and you can get sea views from the terraces. 

The Marc Chagall Museum houses the largest permanent collection of artworks by Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Chagall has a Biblical Message cycle that consists of 17 large paintings depicting scenes like The Creation, Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, The Flood and Song of Songs. On display are also The Creation tapestry, an exterior mosaic and three large stained-glass windows. 

Most impressive is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas. built by a Russian architect in 1912. It has six cupolas with golden bulbs which look rather exotic against the Nice skyline and symbolize the importance of the Russian colony on the Cote d’Azur. Its interior is in the shape of a Greek cross and there are frescos, woodwork and icons to admire. Around the choir, you’ll find sumptuous iconostasis.

Visitors enjoy seeing the 130-year-old Nice Observatory which is a working astrophysics and astronomy lab. It was shown in the Woody Allen movie “Magic in the Moonlight”. The observatory was designed through the collaboration of Gustave Eiffel and Charles Garnier. It was Eiffel’s idea for the ingenious floating system which made the giant telescope mobile – a small man-made lake was dug out and then filled with water, the cupola was erected on a floating platform which then let the 92-ton dome be rotated easily in whatever viewing direction one wanted. Nowadays the telescope and dome are maneuvered by hydraulics. 

Villa Leopolda was named after Belgian King Leopold II. It counts as the largest and most expensive French villa in the world. This beautiful villa overlooks the Mediterranean. During WWI it was used as a military hospital and in 1955 it was used as a movie set for Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief”. An anonymous Russian oligarch purchased the villa in 2011.

The most important public square in Nice is Place Massena. This square is used for festivals, concerts, military processions and other festivities. The square is not far from the Promenade des Anglais and the old town. It is bordered by red buildings of Italian architecture and lined with palm trees and stone pines. There are many restaurants, bars and cafes. 

You can see wonderful modern art at the Musee d’Art Contemporain or MAMAC. This is a modern and contemporary art institution, featuring paintings, sculptures and conceptual installations, in a permanent exhibition that traces the history of the European and American avant-garde since the early sixties. The building which houses the artwork counts as one of Nice’s architectural treasures and was designed by Yves Bayard and Henri Vidal. For fantastic panoramic views of the city head on up to the open-air roof terrace atop the museum. 

A short walk away from the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, the Place Garibaldi is one of the largest squares in Nice. Designed in the late 18th century and bordered by stately Baroque buildings, the square now has a modern urban feel as it is at the junction of four high-traffic thoroughfares and is crossed by a tramline. Gracing the square is a statue of famous Nice resident, the Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi.

One of the trendiest neighborhoods in Nice, Le Petit Marais is found between Place Garibaldi and the port. This charming quarter is known for its restaurants and nightlife.

Nice offers many lovely parks like Parc Phoenix. This is a beautiful botanical and zoological park. It is set around a central pond that is home to live pelicans, swans, geese, ducks and turtles. The park has twenty themed zones including a tropical greenhouse, Mediterranean gardens and several spaces reserved for animals. Within the park are almost 2500 plant species. The zoological gardens aren’t very large. Some animals are in cages among them prairie dogs, otters, porcupines and birds like hawks, crowned cranes, rheas and parrots. The highlight of this park is the central greenhouse which is one of the largest in Europe and has a large collection of orchids and bromeliads. 

Another wonderful green space is Jardin Albert I. This is a municipal park named after Albert I, Prince of Belgium, Duke of Saxony and Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The major attraction in the park is Arc de Venet, a monumental contemporary sculpture. This park is among the oldest gardens in Nice and has a large lawn, fountains and palm trees.