Monuments to visit France

The dungeon, 28 metres high, is the last and smallest of the seven towers of the old feudal castle built by Richard Lion, the future King of England. At the top of the summit, you can find and see the chimneys of La Manu in Chatellerault and those of the Centrale, a bird's flight, 46 kilometres away! Within the castle walls, the th century Notre-Dame-des-Vergers chapel of the th century, a transitional ogival style with the half-slender shape, the emerging arches with all the details of Romanesque ornamentation. In the past, superb murals from the th to the th century represented the bucolic work of the twelve months of the year.

A former hotel created in 1902 on Adam Dettloff's plans to embrace Russian aristocracy, the palace of the Imperial Park had a hectic life. After 10 years of hotel activity, the building was requisitioned during the First World War as a military hospital. In 1930, Nice bought the Palace to make it a high school. He specializes quickly in sports-study-study. A few great French champions, such as Yannick Noah, Henri Lecomte or Guy Forget, studied at Imperial Park High School.

The Baumettes

Forming an ellipse of 67 on 56 metres, the Arènes arenas (name of the Roman city) have a capacity of 4 000 spectators. Built in the st century BC, they were the subject of several successive enlargements to accompany the development of the city. Games, fighting, circus performances were taking place on a daily basis, in the purest tradition of the grandiose staging that the Roman Empire knew organized in all the cities it had colonized.

Now half destroyed, the bullring at Ruins offer a prestigious setting that is the traditional festive theatre or jazz festival.

In the Old Nice, the name of the palaces was given to the special hotels in which the Nice bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie resided. Residence of the counts Lascaris-Ventimiglia (Guillaume-Pierre de Ventimiglia married in 1261 Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore II Lascaris, Earl of Nice), this palace was built at the end of the th century by Jean-Paul Lascaris, grand master of the order of the Knights of Malta and his nephew Jean-Baptiste. Lascaris Palace remains the property of this family until the Revolution. Then sold as a national property, it passes into the hands of several successive owners who allow it to deteriorate. After the First World War, the palace left behind is divided into apartments. Acquired by the city of Nice in 1942, it is classified as a historic monument. It is completely restored from 1962. This palace, in Genoese style, develops around two inner courtyards. The monumental staircase gives access to the noble floor.

The vault of the entrance hall displays the arms of the Lascaris (a two-legged eagle with a cross of Malta reminiscent of the membership of several members of that family in this order). The original paintings date back to the th century, and baroque elements were added to the th century. The apparat are decorated with frescos with frescos. A mural is decorated with caryatids and atlanteans with all beauty. The ceilings are decorated with frescoes with mythological subjects, including a superb Fall of Phaéton. th and th century furniture, Flemish tapestries.

On the ground floor is a pharmacie-style pharmacy. Here you can admire a complete collection of vases, flasks and prawns. On the third floor, regional art collections and popular traditions: pottery, breeding, weaving… The Lascaris Palace will soon become the Music Museum of Nice. A collection of ancient instruments will take place on the floors of the museum.

Built at the end of the last century in the footsteps of a convent in the Dominican order, this neoclassical building is seen by its imposing staircase. Complemented by an appendix that faces it, it encircles a beautiful pedestrian square, Palace square.

This building is the only testimony that we have left these painted houses of Provence which once adorned the Old Town. Bas-reliefs and frescoes carried out in 1584 in soft tones adorn the facade and trace the life and misfortunes of our unhappy ancestors.

He is across the street, opposite the church. This local Joan of Arc became not only a nice heroine, but the patron of the city of Nice. In 1743, a powerful Turkish fleet came to besieged Nice. The city, then well protected behind its ramparts, was january by the artillery. The attackers attacked the castle. While they were grimpaient on their ladders at the storming of the high walls, a young lavandière named Catherine Nissart, who was said to be an amiable physics, armed only of his beater, struck the first of the Turks, took him to the étendard and rushed him to the bottom of the wall, thereby galvanizing the resistance of the castle. Today it symbolizes the spirit of resistance of the International, their taste of independence.

The origin of the castle of Crémat dates from the Roman Empire. At that time, at the place «Li Plana di Mari», known in the region for the cultivation of olive trees and vines, a legion moved and took life. Galleries are built to make food, olive oil and wine. At the beginning of the th century, the wine merchant Antoine Mari built on these galleries, a medieval castle characterized by its imposing tower of machicolated and its rococos ornaments. This wine enthusiast, renaître the vineyard of Bellet and uses the ancient Roman galleries as cellars. In 1941, Bellet wines obtained the appellation AOC. Since 2001, Dutch Cornelis Kamerbeek has been the owner of the castle. Its aim is to rehabilitate the vineyard so that it finds its historic area of 25 ha. Today are the works of expansion, modernisation of cellars, the installation of new sales and tasting rooms. Please note that the castle is also a place of reception.

The current Opera was built on the location of the old municipal theatre destroyed by a fire on Wednesday, March 23, 1881. In 1882, the municipality decided to reconstruct the new theatre, it was François Aune, a nice architect and student of Gustave Eiffel, who was responsible for the project. The building has a traditional masonry envelope based on stone, bricks and lime, but inside, a structure of metal beams supports the enclosure. The decoration of the hall and the stage is the result of a compromise between the locales traditions, the growing influence of Francophiles, the aesthetic requirements of a cosmopolitan public. The decoration is magnificent, the ceiling, painted by Emmanuel Costa, represents Char du Soleil. The sculptures are from Raimondi and represent les Muses: Euterpe (music), Melpomène (tragedy), Thalie (comedy) and Terpsichore (dance). Inaugurated in 1885, it is a typical example of Second Empire style. In 1902 he took the name we know him today: Opera in Nice. The theatre was classified as a historic monument in 1993.

Building designed by the famous sculptor Sacha Sosno, in the image of one of his sculptures. The square head houses the offices of the Louis-Nucéra library.

・ Port

Built for Queen Victoria of England and opened by the hotel on 12 March 1897, this hotel is the most majestic building built in the Belle Epoque in Nice. From the winter of 1895, the Sovereign of England carries out several stays on the French Riviera. It quickly needs a place that matches its prestige! We must not forget that, in this colonial period, the Queen of England reigns over about a quarter of the inhabitants of the planet!

She therefore entrusts the hotel Excelsior Regina Palace to the architect Sébastien-Marcel Biasini, for the modest sum of 40 000 gold francs. Soon, the hotel has its five floors and one hundred and fifty metres of facade at the top of the boulevard at Ruins. The entire left wing is reserved for the Queen because of the many subsequent follow-up. This belongs to the crown, which lies at the top of the dome on the extreme left of the building. As for the location chosen for the construction of the hotel, an element of the décor will seduce the Queen: The Roman remains of the ancient city of Cemenelum, located 10 metres away. Indeed, in the th century, we are in the midst of romantic times and the proximity of ruins ready for reverie. And the Queen also has this romance soul because she liked to walk in the afternoon on the boulevard of Ombragé shaded, in her car pulled by her donkey Jacquot and a little army of Indian, show that was the attraction of all the winterers!

These two villas are two examples of the influence of the Orient in the architecture of the Belle Epoque. It can be seen very well with the mosaics on the façade of Villa Surany (left in the amount of the boulevard) and the kinds of minarets on the Arabisant palace of the Alhambra (right in the amount of the boulevard).

Located in 1830 in the castle park, at the location of a fortified tower of the citadel that covered the hill until 1706, she welcomed Hector Berlioz in 1831 and 1844. Now it houses the naval museum where you can admire collections of arms, mock-ups, and boat engravings, navigational instruments, objects illustrating the maritime history of Nice as well as the canons of Portuguese origin. Once you have climbed the stairs of the "Lesage" staircase, you will have an exceptional panorama of Nice and its bay.

The Palais de la Méditerranée, one of the jewels of luxury luxury of the 1930 s, was opened on January 10, 1929 by the American billionaires Franck and Florence Gould. Due to the nice architects Charles and Marcel Dalmas, the palace was characterized by its vast hall of white marble, its monumental staircase of twenty meters wide, its huge chandeliers, its stained glass windows and its precious wood… Demolished in April 1978 (except for the facade, closed), the palace celebrated its renaissance in December 2003. The casino reopened its doors last spring.

This villa was built in 1900 for a member of the Rothschild family, Baroness Van Zuylen. In 1941, she was bought by the city of Nice to open the conservatory of music of the city.