Nice, the largest and most important city on the French Riviera, is one of my favorite cities in France, and for good reason. It has wonderful architecture, excellent food, a deep blue sea, and plenty to see. One of the most important spots in Nice is the old town, and anyone who has walked through it can’t help feeling like they accidentally crossed the border into Italy.
True, everyone around you will be speaking French, but the architecture and the food are strongly reminiscent of France‘s neighbor to the east. The reason is that for most of its long history, Nice was not a French city at all, but belonged to a noble family that eventually gave Italy its kings.
How did Nice become an “Italian” city, how did it become French again, and most importantly, how did it become one of France’s most beloved resort towns? This article will answer all these questions, giving you the tools to understand what you’re seeing as you wander through the old town or along the “Promenade des Anglais,” and in doing so, make your trip even better.
Ancient Nice: The First Tourists Were Here 400,000 Years Ago
As far as we know, even though there are remains of early humans who lived in the area some 400,000 years ago, the first documented settlement was founded in 350 BCE by the Greeks and was called Nikaia, after the goddess of victory. That name eventually evolved into the one we know today, Nice.
In fact, if you want to be precise (and impress your travel companions), the first tourists in Nice weren’t wealthy Englishmen, but prehistoric elephant hunters. At the “Terra Amata” archaeological site in the city, evidence was found of seasonal camps of early humans who came to enjoy the coast, mostly for the meat, hundreds of thousands of years ago. It seems the pull of beachfront real estate in Nice is an ancient genetic trait.
The Greeks were later replaced by the Romans, who founded a settlement called Cemenelum, which would later become the neighborhood of Cimiez, one of the most touristed neighborhoods in Nice (aside from the old town, of course). For many years, there was a rivalry between “Greek Nice” on the coast, a city of merchants and sailors, and “Roman Cimiez” on the hill, a city of soldiers and officials. In the end, as in most such stories, the sea won.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Nice became an independent city, and during the 7th century it formed an alliance with Genoa. A hundred years later, though, the trouble began.
The greatest trouble Nice faced in the early Middle Ages (8th to 10th centuries) came from the Saracens, Muslim forces who arrived from North Africa and invaded southern Europe. In 729 they laid siege to Nice without success, but about 130 years later they managed, after another siege, to capture and plunder the city (a similar event occurred in 880). Although the Saracens were eventually driven out of Nice, they continued to terrorize the entire French Riviera region until the 10th century.
Even after the Muslim threat disappeared (temporarily), Nice’s wars did not stop. During the Middle Ages, Genoa became its rival, and Nice sided with Pisa. At the same time, both the King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor had their eyes on it. It was during this period that the fortifications protecting the city from numerous invasions were built, some of which can still be seen today.
Nice Becomes “Italian”: The Moment Nice Chose Its Own Boss
During the 13th and 14th centuries, Nice was ruled by the Count of Provence, but in the late 14th century (1388, to be precise), Nice decided to place itself under the protection of the Duke of Savoy. From that point until 1860, Nice’s fate was tightly bound to this noble house, which over the following centuries increasingly turned its attention away from France and toward the Italian peninsula.
This event, known in local history as “the Dedition” (Dédition de Nice à la Savoie), was perhaps one of the most brilliant (and cynical) moves of the era. Nice was not conquered by Savoy, it *chose* Savoy. The residents and local nobility simply “fired” the counts of Provence from the House of Anjou, who had failed to protect them, and signed a detailed protection treaty with Amédée VII of Savoy (1360-1391), “the Red Count.” This was not a conquest, it was a successful real estate and protection deal that secured Nice broad autonomy for centuries to come.
Nice flourished under the House of Savoy and, during the years of its rule, became a wealthy maritime power. During the 16th century, the threat of conquest by a Muslim power suddenly returned (this time the Ottoman Empire), which allied itself with the Kingdom of France and laid siege to the city in 1543. From this siege grew a legendary figure named Catherine Ségurane, who, according to legend, scared off the Turks after wiping her backside with their flag (you can read more about this episode in Amiram Tsabari’s article, The Pirate and the Washerwoman of Nice).
What’s truly fascinating about the 1543 siege is the impossible coalition behind it: Francis I (r. 1515-1547), the Christian King of France, teamed up with Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566), the Ottoman Sultan, to fight against the House of Habsburg. The stunned residents of Nice had to watch the Turkish fleet, commanded by the famous pirate Barbarossa (Hayreddin Barbarossa, c. 1478-1546), bombard their city under the cover of France’s fleur-de-lis flags. History, it turns out, is more cynical than any television drama.
During the reign of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562-1630), the city of Nice was connected to the ducal capital of Turin by a road built in 1593. This road, combined with Nice’s transformation into a free trade city, brought prosperity and created an international community of merchants, led by the English, who left their mark on the city.
Turin’s influence on Nice wasn’t only economic, it was also visual. The reason Nice feels so “orderly” and geometric in certain areas (like the stunning Place Garibaldi) is the “Consiglio d’Ornato” (council for decoration), established in the 19th century and inspired by Turin. This council set strict rules for building facades, colors (those yellow-reddish tones we all love), and street widths. In effect, they invented modern urban planning on the Riviera.
In 1669, the ties between Nice and the English were strengthened through a trade agreement, and about two hundred years before it became a tourist city, Nice was already “on the radar” of the English. However, since the concept of tourism had not yet been invented (that would happen in the late 18th century and especially in the 19th, once fast means of transportation like trains appeared), few English visitors actually came to Nice during this period.
The kings of France never gave up on Nice, and tried several times to conquer it, in some cases even managing to hold it for a while. For example, the French captured the city in 1691 and held it for about five years. Nearly a decade later, the French captured the city again, briefly, and this time destroyed the fortress on the hill along with much of the fortifications. That’s why today, when you climb up to “Castle Hill” (Colline du Château), you’ll mostly find breathtaking views and an artificial waterfall, but no castle at all.
The Birth of Winter Tourism (Thanks to the Grumpy Tobias Smollett)
During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), Nice was no longer “just” part of the Duchy of Savoy, it was now part of a kingdom: the Kingdom of Sardinia, which the dukes of Savoy had acquired about 20 years earlier. The ties between Nice and the English grew even stronger during this war, as Savoy allied with England, and the English sent forces to Nice and used it as a kind of “forward post” in Provence.
The British soldiers who served in Nice fell in love with the pleasant climate and the picturesque landscape of Provence, and when they returned home they told their friends about it. Word of the magical place soon reached the English aristocracy, and as a result, Nice became one of the destinations on their “Grand Tour.”
What exactly was this “Grand Tour”? Think of the trip people take after their military service to South America or Southeast Asia. Well, something similar, except that while the goal of the post-service trip is usually to relax after an exhausting stint, the English “Grand Tour” had an educational purpose, so maybe it’s more like a “gap year” (and in fact, it lasted about a year).
One of the people who contributed the most to Nice’s fame was the Scottish writer Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), who arrived in the city in 1763. Smollett was probably the most annoying tourist in history: he complained about the food, the filth, the locals, and the prices. But the book he wrote, “Travels Through France and Italy,” became a massive bestseller. The English read his complaints and thought to themselves, “Hmm, warm weather in winter? Sounds great, we’re coming!” And so, the man who hated Nice became its best marketing agent.
During the Grand Tour, young noblemen, usually in their late teens or early twenties, were sent to the Italian peninsula to be exposed both to the antiquities of Rome and to the painters of the Renaissance and Baroque (and of course to music and the other arts). In practice, most of them used the trip to father illegitimate children and come home with a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, but that’s not the subject of this article. What matters is that Nice became not only a military and economic destination, but a tourist one as well.
As a result, during the second half of the 18th century, all of England’s high society began arriving to spend the wet, cold winter in Nice, which enjoyed warm and pleasant weather. Who didn’t visit? The Duke of York, brother of the King of England, visited in 1764, the Duke of Gloucester arrived with his wife and children in 1770, and the list goes on. In the 19th century, Russian royalty joined them, arriving on luxurious trains (after the rail line reached the city in 1864) and building palaces like the stunning Saint Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, the largest Russian church outside Russia.
These tourists didn’t stay in inns or hotels, they built themselves grand villas, some of which have survived to this day (for example, Villa Furtado-Heine, built by Lady Penelope Pitt-Rivers). This kind of tourism grew stronger after Napoleon’s fall, and in 1821 the English pastor Lewis Way (1772-1840) decided to build a promenade along the seashore and between the villas the English had built. This promenade, which today stretches about 2.8 miles, is called the “Promenade des Anglais,” and it remains one of Nice’s most important tourist attractions.
The English were the ones who discovered Nice’s tourist appeal, but they certainly weren’t the only visitors who began arriving during the 18th century. One of them was Johann Georg Sulzer (1720-1779), a mathematics professor of Swiss origin who spent most of his life working for Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia.
In 1775, Johann Georg fell ill, and his doctors recommended he travel to Nice to recover, hoping the climate would do him good. And indeed, he managed to recover from his illness, and as a thank you to the city that had saved his life, he decided to write a book titled “Journey from Berlin to Nice.” This book was something like the great-grandfather of the travel blog, since it contained descriptions of every village and town on the way to Nice, along with plenty of travel tips.
The book, originally published in German, became a huge success and was translated into French in 1787, which in turn helped make tourism the leading engine of Nice’s economy.
Nice Moves From Italy to France (and Suspiciously, Everyone Voted “Yes”)
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Nice continued to change hands several times (for example, between 1744-1748 and between 1792-1814 it was under French control, but was always returned to the House of Savoy). But in 1860, Nice passed, finally and completely, into French hands, without a single shot being fired. How did this happen?
The House of Savoy had existed since the 11th century, and although it faced occasional difficulties and challenges throughout its long history, its path to the top of Europe’s royal houses was clear. The family began as counts and became dukes in the 15th century. In the 18th century they became kings of Sicily, but in 1720 they were forced to give up Sicily in exchange for Sardinia.
As nationalism developed across Europe during the first half of the 19th century, King Charles Albert of Sardinia (r. 1831-1849) and his successor Victor Emmanuel II (r. 1849-1878) decided to take advantage of the awakening Italian nationalism in order to seize control of all of Italy, then ruled by the House of Habsburg, and unite it under their own rule.
During the 1850s, Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861), foreign minister to Victor Emmanuel, approached Napoleon III (who ruled as Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870) and requested military assistance. In 1858, following a secret meeting between the two in the town of Plombières, it was agreed that France would intervene militarily on Sardinia’s side, and in exchange would receive the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice.
I won’t go into the consequences of this agreement or the series of battles that followed, since this article isn’t about Italy’s wars of independence. What matters is that in 1860, the King of Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France, and following (fairly dubious) referendums held in the two regions, they became part of the French Empire. The official results were astonishing: about 25,000 voted “yes” and only about 160 voted “no” (or abstained, depending on who you ask). Many historians argue the whole thing was rigged from the start, “no” ballots were simply unavailable at many polling stations. Either way, a lot has happened since then, France is no longer an empire, but Nice remains part of it.
If you thought Nice’s transformation into a French city went smoothly, think again. After the French language became the official language, a large portion of the Italian-speaking population left the city. Those who remained elected Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), a native of Nice and a hero of Italian unification, as their representative to the National Assembly in 1871, hoping to bring Nice back to Italy.
This led to riots in the city, which were crushed with an iron fist. Garibaldi was expelled from the National Assembly, and many Italian intellectuals left Nice. Despite the failure of the uprising, the pro-Italian movement in Nice continued to exist until 1914. Even today, in certain corners of the old town, you can still hear the local dialect, Niçard, a reminder that this city’s identity is far more complicated than the flag flying over city hall.
Nice in the Modern Era: From Jazz to Terror
During the 20th century, Nice kept growing and developing, but the nature of its tourism changed completely. If in the 19th century Nice was a “city of winter” for ailing aristocrats seeking a cure, after World War I the Americans arrived (like the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940) and brought with them jazz, tanning, and the strange idea of… swimming in the sea in summer! Suddenly, the hotels that used to close in August began filling up, and Nice became the eternal summer capital we know today.
The city also became a magnet for many artists, like Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall (1887-1985), who opened wonderful museums there that still exist today. The Riviera’s special light must have done something good for their canvases.
During World War II, Nice went through dark times, first under a relatively milder Italian occupation (compared with how Jews were treated), and later under a brutal German occupation. The city lost a significant part of its population, but it also gave rise to a brave resistance movement. However, during the second half of the 20th century, Nice went through a period of construction and restoration under the leadership of a father and son who served one after the other as mayors of the city.
The first and most legendary was Jean Médecin (1890-1965), who ran the city for 33 years (with a break during World War II). The second was his son Jacques Médecin (1928-1998), who ruled the city until 1990, when he was forced to flee it, and France, following corruption scandals he was accused of (he fled to Uruguay, but was eventually extradited and died in prison, a far less glamorous ending than he had planned).
In 2016, a Muslim truck driver ran over and killed dozens of people who had gathered on the Promenade des Anglais to watch the traditional Bastille Day fireworks. 86 people were murdered and hundreds more were injured in an attack that left a deep scar on the city. And yet, even today, Nice remains a highly beloved tourist destination, and in 2021 it was even recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in honor of its Riviera culture.
Now that you’ve had a taste of Nice’s fascinating history, it’s time to start exploring it.
A Few Articles to Help You Plan Your Trip to Nice
- Flights to Nice: every trip starts with finding a good flight, and that’s exactly why I wrote this article. You’ll find not only ways to lower the price of your ticket, but also important information about Nice’s airport.
- Recommended hotels in Nice: once you’ve found a flight, the next step is finding a hotel. To help you avoid any bad surprises, I put together a list of recommended hotels broken down by price range.
- Renting a car in Nice: want to use Nice as your base for exploring the whole French Riviera? I highly recommend renting a car so you can reach not just the big cities but the small villages too. In this article you’ll find recommendations for car rental companies along with other important information.
- Provence travel guide: following up on the previous point, if you decide to venture beyond Nice, you’ll find on this page a whole series of articles and information about cities, towns, and villages on the French Riviera and in Provence more broadly.
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