Holidays and entertainment

The winter season is an uninterrupted suite of receptions, concerts and parties in large private villas.

Many theatres exist in the city. The circles drain a selected clientele as one must be sponsored to be part of it unlike casinos. The first casino was opened in 1867 on the Promenade des Anglais, but it only knows an ephemeral existence, replaced by the Cercle de la Méditerranée. The Municipal Casino (1884) and the Casino de la Jetée (1891) will have a lasting success, the second becoming the most emblematic building of the Belle Epoque in Nice.

January and February mark the top of the winter season with the races and the Carnival. If it is mentioned in Nice from the 13th century, it is from 1873, corresponding to the creation of the Festival Committee, that it takes its present form with a parade of burlesque tanks made of cardboard-grass, masked and costumed balls (Veglione, Redoute) and the battles of flowers (1876) where the elegant relatives of their cars of floral motifs.

Regattas, and from the beginning of the twentieth century, motor races and aviation meetings also attract a wide audience.

Individual sports also develop (tennis, skating, golf, etc.) mainly at the initiative of the English and the Niçois begin to be passionate about collective sports such as football. The practice of skiing appears in the country increasingly visited thanks to the increase in the number of cars.