Twenty kilometres from Monaco, Nice Old Town has kept its Piedmontese face and the rhythm of a living quarter. Landmarks, market days, local dishes and how to get there from the Principality: the complete guide.
Twenty kilometres from Monaco, Nice Old Town unfolds as a maze of ochre lanes where laundry hangs from the windows, baroque bells mark out the day and people eat socca standing up, straight from the pan. Wedged between the sea, Castle Hill and place Masséna, this historic quarter looks like nowhere else on the French Riviera: it kept the Piedmontese face it inherited from the four centuries when Nice belonged to the House of Savoy.
This guide covers what you need before getting lost in it: the landmarks worth your time, market days on cours Saleya, the dishes to try and the easiest way to get there from the Principality. Our guests usually give it half a day, and that is the right format.
Vieux Nice, a quarter unlike any other on the Riviera
Where exactly is Nice Old Town?
The quarter forms a triangle of roughly twenty hectares, bounded to the south by the quai des États-Unis and the terrasse des Ponchettes, to the east by Castle Hill, and to the west by the jardin Albert 1er and place Masséna. You go in from cours Saleya, rue de la Préfecture or place Garibaldi, and you almost always come out having ignored the route you planned.
The street plan is medieval: narrow lanes, often only two to three metres wide, laid out to keep the shade and let the air move. Locals call it the natural air conditioning of the quarter, and in August you understand why within minutes.
Why does Vieux Nice feel so Italian?
Because it partly is. Nice only became French in 1860. Before that the county belonged to the States of Savoy and then to the Kingdom of Sardinia, with Turin as its capital. The churches, palaces and facades of the old town were therefore built by architects and craftsmen trained in the Piedmontese baroque tradition.
That heritage shows everywhere: in the trompe-l'oeil painted on the facades, in the ochre and blood-red colours prescribed from Turin, in church interiors saturated with stucco and gilding. Since 27 July 2021 Nice has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list as the "Winter Resort Town of the Riviera": the inscribed area of 522 hectares runs along the quai des États-Unis and the terrasse des Ponchettes, right on the edge of the old town.
☉ Good to know
Vieux Nice is not a museum quarter: several thousand people live here year round. The lanes are busy very early in the morning, noisy at night, and many shops close in the middle of the afternoon. Plan your visit around that rhythm rather than around monument opening hours.
What to see in Nice Old Town
Cours Saleya and its flower market
This long, colourful esplanade is the spine of the quarter and its permanent stage. From Tuesday to Sunday it hosts the flower market, one of the best known in France. Stalls mix mimosa, carnations and roses with fruit, vegetables, Nice olives, herbs and soaps.
Flowers stay out until late afternoon from Tuesday to Saturday; on Sunday the market packs up in the early afternoon. Mondays are a complete change of scene: the flowers give way to an antiques and flea market with close to a hundred and fifty stallholders, furniture, silverware, prints and old books. Entry is free.
If you already know the Ventimiglia market across the Italian border, the contrast is instructive: Ventimiglia trades on volume and textiles, cours Saleya on cut flowers and local produce.
Place Rossetti and Sainte-Réparate Cathedral
At the end of a tangle of shaded lanes, place Rossetti opens up all at once, full of light, with its central fountain and the yellow facade of Sainte-Réparate Cathedral. The surprise is deliberate: this is baroque stagecraft doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The present building went up between 1650 and 1699 to plans by the architect Jean-André Guiberto, on a difficult site where the vault collapsed in 1658. Listed as a historic monument in 1906, the cathedral was raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1949. The Latin cross interior lines up ten side chapels decorated with polychrome marble and stucco. Entry is free outside services.
The square is also lined with ice cream terraces, the best known offering a startling number of flavours. It is at its best late in the day, when the facade turns gold.
Palais Lascaris, a jewel of civic baroque
One of the finest interiors in the city hides behind a plain door at 15 rue Droite. Former home of the Lascaris-Vintimille family, Palais Lascaris has been a listed historic monument since 1946 and now houses a museum devoted to seventeenth and eighteenth century art and music.
You will find a monumental staircase covered in frescoes, state rooms with painted ceilings and, above all, a collection of early musical instruments from the Antoine Gautier bequest of 1904, one of the most important in France. Allow an hour.
The museum opens from 10am to 6pm and closes on Tuesdays. Admission is 5 EUR, free for under 18s and students, and a pass covering all municipal museums costs 15 EUR. Hours and prices can change, so check the City of Nice website before you set off.
Nice Old Town highlights at a glance
| Site | Address | Time needed | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cours Saleya and flower market | Cours Saleya | 45 min | Free |
| Sainte-Réparate Cathedral | 3 place Rossetti | 20 min | Free |
| Palais Lascaris | 15 rue Droite | 1 hr | 5 EUR |
| Gesù church | Rue Droite | 15 min | Free |
| Chapelle de la Miséricorde | Cours Saleya | 20 min | Limited opening |
| Castle Hill park | Montée Monfort | 1 hr | Free |
Chapelle de la Miséricorde and the Gesù church
Two buildings sum up the local baroque on their own. On cours Saleya, the Chapelle de la Miséricorde presents a plain ochre facade with no bell tower, almost easy to miss, hiding an elliptical single nave covered in gold and stucco. Its design is attributed to the Turin architect Bernardo Vittone in 1740, one of the great names of Piedmontese baroque. It opens only occasionally, so ask the tourist office if you want to see inside.
On rue Droite, the church of Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur, known as the Gesù, is the first great baroque church in Nice. Built by the Jesuits from the early seventeenth century, it served as the model for rebuilding many religious buildings across the county. The stucco cherubs clinging to the cornices are worth the visit on their own.
Castle Hill and the view over the Baie des Anges
Nothing remains of the medieval castle that dominated Nice for a thousand years except a few ruins. But the park that replaced it is still the best viewpoint in the city: 19.3 hectares of wooded garden, an artificial waterfall, playgrounds and a belvedere 92 metres above the sea, taking in the tiled roofs of the old town, the curve of the Baie des Anges and the port of Lympia in a single sweep.
Access is free. The park opens from 8.30am to 8pm between 1 April and 31 October, and from 8.30am to 6pm between 1 November and 31 March. Three ways up: the Lesage staircase from rue Rossetti, the montée Monfort, or the free lift at the foot of the Bellanda tower, at the eastern end of the quai des États-Unis. The lift is occasionally out of service for maintenance, so keep the stairs as a fallback.
♦ Concierge's tip
Climb Castle Hill in the late afternoon rather than at midday: the light hits the tiled roofs head on and the Baie des Anges turns deep blue. Take the Lesage staircase on the way up and the lift on the way down. When you stay at the Port Palace, your concierge can time the train for you and book your table for the evening.
Where to eat in Nice Old Town, and what to order
Niçoise cooking started as poor food and became a regional emblem: chickpeas, chard, olives, anchovies, courgettes. Here is what to try at least once.
- Socca: a chickpea flour pancake baked in a wood-fired oven, peppered, served scalding hot on a paper plate. Eat it standing, with your fingers.
- Pissaladière: bread dough, slow-cooked onions, anchovies and black olives. No tomato, whatever you may see elsewhere.
- Pan-bagnat: the local sandwich, a round loaf rubbed with olive oil, tuna, hard-boiled egg, anchovies and raw vegetables. Never mayonnaise.
- Petits farcis: courgettes, tomatoes, onions and peppers filled with stuffing and browned in the oven.
- Tourte de blettes: the only sweet tart in the world built on chard leaves, raisins and pine nuts.
For socca, the historic address is Chez Thérésa at 28 rue Droite, baking it since 1925 in a wood-fired oven dating from 1867. The house also sells portions at the cours Saleya market, carried straight from the oven on a three-wheeled cart. Best timing: just before noon, ahead of the queue.
The quarter has hundreds of restaurants of wildly uneven quality. Simple rule: skip the terraces on cours Saleya with laminated photo menus and walk one or two streets back. If dining is central to your trip, our guide to the best tables in Monaco covers the other side of the border.
Nice in the morning, Monaco in the evening: 23 minutes by train, and both fit into one day.
Check availabilityTraditional shops worth a stop
Rue Saint-François-de-Paule, which extends cours Saleya westwards, holds the oldest houses in the quarter. Facing the Nice Opera, Maison Auer has been making candied fruit, chocolate and calissons since 1820, in a shop of crystal chandeliers and art nouveau glass that has barely changed. A few doors down, the Nicolas Alziari boutique, opened in 1936 by a house producing olive oil since 1868, lines up its jars and its single-estate oils.
Add the spice merchants of rue Pairolière, the candied fruit counters and the Marseille soap stalls, and you can take home something other than a fridge magnet.
When is the best time to visit?
The quarter runs on two very different rhythms. Between 8am and 11am it still belongs to residents: traders set up, cafés serve, low light reaches into the lanes. From 11.30am until late afternoon visitor numbers peak, especially in July and August. From 7pm the quarter tips towards terraces and bars.
Across the year, April to June and September to October give the best balance: pleasant temperatures, busy markets, bearable crowds. In winter Vieux Nice stays alive, which is not true of every coastal village.
Cours Saleya day by day
| Day | Market | Indicative times |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Antiques and flea market, around 150 stalls | Morning and afternoon |
| Tuesday to Saturday | Flowers, fruit, vegetables and local produce | Early morning to late afternoon |
| Sunday | Flowers and fresh produce | Early morning to early afternoon |
| Summer evenings | Craft and makers' market | From 6pm, in season |
Times are indicative and vary with the season and the day. Check with the Nice Côte d'Azur tourist office before you travel.
How to get to Nice Old Town from Monaco
The train is by far the simplest option. From Monaco-Monte-Carlo station, allow around 23 minutes to Nice-Ville, with close to sixty services a day and a full-fare ticket between 5 and 7 EUR depending on the time. From Nice-Ville station the old town is a twenty minute walk, or a short ride on tram line 1, getting off at Opéra-Vieille Ville or Cathédrale-Vieille Ville.
By car, allow around thirty minutes outside peak hours via the lower or middle corniche, but parking in central Nice is expensive and often full. The Sulzer and Palais de Justice car parks are the closest to the old town. For a full picture of the routes to and from the Principality, see our guide to getting to Monaco.
A day on the French Riviera combines easily: the village of Èze and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat both sit on the road between Monaco and Nice and make an easy stop on the way out or back.
Nice Old Town: the essentials from Monaco
| Distance from Monaco | About 20 km |
| Train | Monaco-Monte-Carlo to Nice-Ville in about 23 min, close to 60 services a day, 5 to 7 EUR full fare |
| Station to old town | 20 min on foot, or tram line 1 (Opéra-Vieille Ville and Cathédrale-Vieille Ville stops) |
| By car | 30 min outside peak hours via the lower or middle corniche, parking is difficult |
| Suggested visit length | Half a day, a full day with a museum and Castle Hill |
| Best time slot | 8am to 11am for the market and the light |
| Admission budget | Free for most sites, 5 EUR per municipal museum |
Nice Old Town from the Port Palace
The Port Palace stands five minutes on foot from Monaco-Monte-Carlo station, which makes the trip to Nice faster than crossing most large cities. Leave after breakfast, walk the cours Saleya market, have lunch in the quarter, climb Castle Hill in the early afternoon and be back before drinks: the whole programme fits comfortably into a day.
Our 50 rooms and suites all face Port Hercule, and our guests have the benefit of a concierge service to arrange transfers, bookings and guided visits. On your return, La Môme restaurant on the sixth floor looks out over the harbour and rounds off the day rather well. For tailor-made journeys, our private transfer services cover the whole Riviera.
If you would rather stay on the Monegasque side, the Rock and Monaco old town offer a comparable experience, in a more princely register and fifteen minutes on foot.
Port Palace Monaco
Monaco as your base, the Riviera as your playground
Fifty rooms and suites facing Port Hercule, five minutes on foot from Monaco station. Our guests have the benefit of a concierge service to arrange transfers, day trips and reservations, from Nice Old Town to the hilltop villages inland.
Book your stayFAQ: your questions about Nice Old Town
How long do you need to visit Nice Old Town?
Half a day is enough to walk the lanes and see cours Saleya, place Rossetti and Sainte-Réparate Cathedral. Allow a full day if you add Palais Lascaris, Castle Hill and lunch in the quarter.
What is the best time of day to visit Vieux Nice?
Morning, between 8am and 11am. The cours Saleya market is in full swing, the light is good in the lanes and visitor numbers are still moderate. From 11.30am the crowds build sharply in high season.
Does the cours Saleya market run every day?
Almost. The flower and fresh produce market runs from Tuesday to Sunday morning. On Mondays it gives way to an antiques and flea market with around a hundred and fifty stallholders. Entry is free every day.
Is Nice Old Town accessible with a pushchair or a wheelchair?
Partly. Cours Saleya, the quai des États-Unis and the main axes are flat and passable, but many lanes are cobbled, narrow and crowded with terraces. Palais Lascaris is not wheelchair accessible.
How long does it take to get from Monaco to Nice Old Town?
About 23 minutes by train between Monaco-Monte-Carlo and Nice-Ville, then a twenty minute walk or ten minutes by tram. With connections, allow around forty-five minutes door to door from Port Hercule.
Can you visit Nice Old Town for free?
Mostly, yes. The lanes, cours Saleya, Sainte-Réparate Cathedral, the Gesù church and the Castle Hill park are all free to enter. Only the municipal museums, including Palais Lascaris, charge admission, at 5 EUR with free entry for under 18s.
Nice Old Town asks a little of you: you have to accept getting lost, looking up and eating on your feet. That is exactly what makes it one of the best day trips from Monaco.
