Old Nice
1h 50mn · Easy. · 11 steps
The traveller who arrives in Nice has the strange impression of having already reached Italy as the local context immediately plunges him into the atmosphere of the peninsula: places of pedestal inspiration, churches and baroque buildings, narrow streets and colorful facades of the houses of the old town with a sluggish accents, not to mention the smells of olive oil and basil mixed with the gleams of ambient flowers Whether it comes from Turin, Genoa or elsewhere, the Italian influence is everywhere present in Nice, where it has a local touch that gives it such a particular charm.
Texts : Cécile Verdoni
Images : City of Nice
Steps
The Basilica-Cathedrale Sainte-Réparate
5mn
In the 16th century, the only miliary use of the castle hill led to the displacement of the high city to the low city. Sainte-Réparate then took the role of cathedral, instead of Sainte-Marie on the hill. This new status requires a resumption of the building, begun in 1650 by the architect of Niçois Jean-André Guibert. The Baroque style is adopted but its decline is relatively sober, reinforced by the lack of vaulted decoration. The plan takes over the Roman churches of the 17th century, including Sant’Andrea della Valle (Corso Vittorio Emanuele II). The dome and the façade are similar to the Genoese Baroque. The facade, made only in the 1820s, was recently colored. The initials of the princes of Savoy, present in the nave and the choir, exalt their glory and recall the singular history that has linked Nice and Piedmont for more than five centuries.