Dwellings
Overview of the different types of houses:
The farmhouse, a small house without a floor with modestly sized windows to keep the maximum of freshness inside.
The bastide or "maison de maître" is a middle-class house built of cut stone. More solid and more luxurious than the mas, the stones used for the facades, a purely aesthetic invention of the secondary residents of our century, are carefully plastered to protect them from bad weather, pests and the proliferation of ivy. The farm buildings are arranged around the main house. There are also bastidons (small houses) and sheds, nowadays diverted from their first vocation to become a tiny secondary residence in the middle of the field.
The village house located in the heart of a fortified village has tiny rooms and four or five floors to raise its last mansard roofs closer to the sky. Each level corresponds to a precise function: the cellar, cool by definition, contains the food reserves. The first floor (on the same level) houses the mule or the donkey. The noble floor on the first level is used for living. The upper floors are used as lodging for the servants and as a pantry for fruits and vegetables. Finally, the last attic is filled with hay that is hoisted from the street by a pulley to ensure insulation from the cold in winter and the heat in summer.
The houses of the countryside are arranged differently: on the first floor, there is the living room. On the north side, in the part less exposed to the sun, is built the kitchen whose freshness allows to preserve fruits, vegetables and cheeses. The bedrooms are on the second floor: they are small and often without a corridor to access them. One crosses the first room to reach the second and so on. Each house is built near a spring or a fountain. The unused spring water is poured into a roubine, a small irrigation canal that leads the precious liquid to the vegetable garden. In the Nice region and its hinterland, the Niçoise roofs have no less than four slopes, each one starting from the center, covering one of the four facades. In front of the house, there is often a small garden a few meters deep that serves only a decorative purpose: the main garden, where one stands, is always well hidden behind to protect the privacy of the family. The floors are made of waxed hexagonal terracotta tiles: in the hot season, the terracotta gives a delicious sensation of freshness: it is good to walk barefoot on it.
Terraces, gardens and shutters
The terrace is almost considered a room in the house, in the open air. One goes effortlessly from the common room to the terrace, from the terrace to the garden. In winter, the sun shines down on the terrace: it enters the rooms of the house while the branches are bare of leaves. In summer, you can enjoy a cool drink under the wisteria or the trellis, supported by ironwork brackets that constitute the essential layout of the terrace. There is still an ornament that makes the charm of Provencal houses: the shutters. Often blue, sometimes mauve, they stand out against the ochre of the facades. They are made of solid wood, thick, studded like armor. They are opened and closed with a sharp slap on the wall. In the summer, they are opened by means of shutters, which keeps the room cool.
The bell towers
Another architectural particularity of Provence and the French Riviera are the bell towers in the shape of wind cages, also called campaniles. In its original function, the campanile was a simple support for the bell. The campaniles have ironwork structures in the shape of a bulb or kiosk, planted on the masonry of the tower to prevent the roof from being blown away by the mistral. Each campanile consists of two distinct parts: the base and the crown. The base is most often inspired by a simple geometric shape on which a dome is fitted. They all have a particular shape: there are more than 250 of them! By its aestheticism and originality, the Provencal campanile has become a work of art. Almost every village on the Côte d'Azur has its own. This testimony of a naive art remains one of the most beautiful jewels of the country architecture inherited from the past centuries.
Religious Baroque
The French Riviera has a particularly rich cultural heritage with a large number of Baroque churches and chapels. Supported by the Roman Catholic Church since the end of the 16th century, Baroque art consecrates the triumph of the curved line after the architectural dictatorship of the straight line. All in gilding, trompe l'oeil and splendor, it can be found in the old town of Nice with the church of "Jesu" imitating the church of "Gesù" in Rome, the church of Saint Rita or the cathedral of Saint-Reparate, a true masterpiece, among others. In opposition to the austerity of Protestantism, the Baroque is expressed in many buildings throughout the French Riviera.
For the amateurs, a circuit especially studied for them from Nice is to be discovered. It goes all the way to Menton through all the valleys and allows you to see the most interesting works of this particular art. This tour finds its extension in a program of concerts of baroque music which takes place in the churches and chapels of the valleys of the Bévéra and the Roya from June to September each year: the Baroquiales.
In the footsteps of Garnier and Eiffel
Two men of unparalleled talent have left their mark on the Côte d'Azur landscape: the architect Charles Garnier and the industrial engineer Gustave Eiffel. Their works have become true symbols of architecture: they are beautiful and have stood the test of time. Like the great international cities, the Côte d'Azur has also become a favorite land for these two great builders who have left their mark here: some of their buildings have been excellently preserved and can be visited.
Charles Garnier. The Monte-Carlo Opera House, the Grand Casino of Monte-Carlo and the Trente-Quarante gaming room, the Nice observatory, the Eilenroc villa in Cap d'Antibes, the Maria Serena and Foucher de Careil villas in Menton.
Gustave Eiffel. The dome of the Nice observatory, that of the winter garden of the Hermitage hotel in Monaco, the staircase of the Maria Serena villa in Menton, the Durandy villa in Beaulieu-sur-Mer and the dome of the Riviera Palace in Beausoleil, without forgetting the framework of the Molinard distillery in Grasse.
Military architecture
Along the Côte d'Azur coastline or in the hinterland of Nice, there is an important military architectural heritage: from imposing fortress-like constructions to more discreet bunkers, here is a small overview of these treasures that can be visited.
The Mont-Alban fort in Nice, the Sainte-Elme citadel in Villefranche-sur-Mer and the Saint-Hospice fortress in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. These three buildings were built at the request of the Duke of Savoy in the 16th century and prefigured a new type of bastioned fortifications based on a "star" layout in response to the new artillery techniques in use at the time. Perfectly preserved, they are one of the rare vestiges of this period existing in France.
The Château de Nice and the Bellanda Tower are two fortified works with a military vocation. The castle existed from the 11th to the 18th century on the hill that now bears its name. The old town was surrounded by a wall. Except for the Bellanda Tower, superbly restored and transformed into a museum, the whole of these fortifications was destroyed by Louis XIV in 1706. While there is no trace of the ramparts of old Nice, except on the Cours Saleya, the castle will remain in a state of ruin: one can visit the site offering a breathtaking view of the sea.
The battery or "Fort Tabourde" in Tende dates from 1883. It was part of the five satellite protection batteries of the Colle Alto dam fort. Designed for 120 men, the fort and its annex buildings (guardhouse, optical telegraph station and mortar battery) were disarmed during the First World War and left to decay.
Perched on the Saint-Roch peninsula, the Fort Carré in Antibes dominates the Mediterranean. Built on the orders of King Henry II of France, the site occupies a strategic position. Until the 19th century, it served as a sentinel for the border with the County of Nice and as a defense post for Antibes. When Nice became part of France in 1860 and the border retreated, it was decommissioned. Transferred by the Army to the Ministry of Sports in 1967, the Fort was bought by the City of Antibes in 1997, which organizes guided tours.
The Royal Fort of Sainte-Marguerite Island was built in 1617 by the Duke of Guise in order to lock the access to Cannes by the sea. A few years later, the building was embellished with other constructions, giving it its current pentagon shape (Vauban). Inside the enclosure, there is a chapel and several sheds used to house the troops and artillery stores. Several cells were built there: the work became a state prison and the famous, but unknown "Iron Mask" was held there for 11 years from 1687 to 1698. The fort, which is in need of restoration, is nevertheless secure and can be visited.
The fortified line of the Paillon: the communes of Levens, l'Escarène and Conte in the hinterland of Nice, at an altitude of about 800 m, form by their geography a natural obstacle to the invasions of the Ponant as well as a traffic corridor between Nice and the Vésubie valley.
