Flower market
🗓 Every day except Monday!
🕛From 6:00 to 1:30
📍 Cours Saleya
Like any love story, you need flowers. And here it is a lightning shot between the French Riviera and Alphonse Karr. Besides, a street has its name in Nice.
Alphonse Karr is a 19th-century French poet, friend of Victor Hugo. Just like the latter, he suffered the coup d'état of Napoleon III in 1851. He came to take refuge in Nice, which was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardaigne at the time.
He developed his garden with various varieties of roses, eyelets and other types of flowers. Based on an existing model, which he has perfected, he launched the first flower business in the city centre.
Sales exploded, and the rich winterers rushed to buy bouquets.
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
Two technological innovations have made it possible to accelerate production in Nice: the train, to export many of the bouquets throughout Europe, and the arrival of drinking water in large quantities by diverting the canal of Vésubie, thus allowing too dry spaces to cover with flowers.
Nice became a real garden, and in 1897 we opened the first wholesale market on the Cours Saleya, alongside local fruit and vegetables.