Nice Audio Tours

Greek colonists from Phocaea founded Nice around 350 BC and named it Nikaia after Nike, the goddess of victory. The city changed hands so many times in subsequent centuries that its identity became something singular: neither fully French nor fully Italian, with Nicard dialect, local cuisine, and architecture that reflect all of it. France annexed Nice only in 1860 through the Treaty of Turin, and a minority of residents staged an uprising in 1871 to protest the loss of Italian sovereignty. They lost, but the cultural undertow remained. Socca, the thin chickpea pancake baked in wood-fired ovens and sold in paper cones at the Cours Saleya market, is not something you find anywhere else in France.

The Promenade des Anglais was conceived by English aristocrats wintering on the Cote d'Azur in the 18th century and has been one of the world's most famous seaside walks ever since.

Nice was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Winter Resort Town in 2021. Henri Matisse lived and worked here for much of his later life; his museum in the Cimiez neighbourhood houses the world's largest collection of his work. Marc Chagall's museum is five minutes walk from Matisse's. Friedrich Nietzsche spent six consecutive winters writing in Nice. The Observatory opened in 1879 with a dome designed by Gustave Eiffel, its 76-centimetre refractor the largest telescope in the world when it opened in 1888.