France Guide
The Côte d'Azur
The promenade des Anglais
The point where the Paillon flows into the sea marks the beginning of the promenade des Anglais, created by nineteenth-century English residents for their afternoon strolls along the Mediterranean shore. Today it's more or less a permanent traffic jam, still bordered by some of the most fanciful turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture on the Côte d'Azur. At nos. 13–15, the Palais de la Méditerranée is once again a luxurious casino, though the splendid Art Deco facade is all that remains of the 1930s original.
Most celebrated of all is the opulent, vaguely eccentric Negresco Hotel at no. 37, built in 1906, and occupying the block between rues de Rivoli and Cronstadt. Provided you're wearing tenue correcte you can try wandering in to see the Salon Louis XIV and the Salon Royale. The first, on the left of the foyer, has a seventeenth-century painted oak ceiling and mammoth fireplace, plus royal portraits, all from various French châteaux. The Salon Royale, in the centre of the hotel, is a vast domed oval room, decorated with 24-carat gold leaf and the biggest carpet ever to have come out of the Savonnerie workshops. The chandelier is one of a pair commissioned from Baccarat by Tsar Nicholas II – the other hangs in the Kremlin.
The beach below the promenade des Anglais is all pebbles and mostly public, with showers provided. It's not particularly clean and you need to watch out for broken glass. There are fifteen private beaches, clustering at the more scenic, eastern end of the bay close to Vieux Nice. If you don't mind rocks, you might want to try the string of coves beyond the port that starts with the plage de la Réserve, opposite Parc Vigier (bus #20 or #30).