Below you'll find a list of all posts from August, 2019
While it doesn’t bloom until next June, the lavender fields are always popular for visitors to the Côte d’Azur and Via Nissa is pleased that our visits to the Lavender fields as well as to Grasse, the Perfume Capital of the World and now a UNESCO World Heritage for immaterial patrimony in the know-how of perfume production will be led …
Did you ever wonder why Nice seems to have forgotten the American President Thomas Jefferson? This plaque (dated 2009) was originally on display in Nice but I had never seen it. At the Hotel de York, where Jefferson spent from April 10-13, 1789, there is a plaque, but nothing mentioning Jefferson. And Jefferson was a lover of Bellet wines, buying …
Did you ever wonder how old Nice is? Well the Greeks came to the region 600 years before Christ was born. They came from today’s Turkey and initially founded Marseilles. They founded Nikaïa (meaning “Victory”) on Castle Hill. The Romans founded Cemenelum (Cimiez), a competitor to the Greeks, 13 years before Christ. Cimiez had belonged to the Ligurians known as …
In our American and English tours of Nice we often stop to visit the district of the Croix de Marble, the first neighborhood of Nice which was the home of the English during the 18th and 19th century. But if we go back a little further in history, we find ourselves back in 1431, when ten Niçois nobles were concerned …
It is a question that we are often asked, even by those who have lived in the city for more than 10 years. The quick answer is no. Nice was never Italian. Yet the administrative language of government in Nice was Italian and the local people spoke Nissart, a dialect of Occitan. During the time of the County of Savoy, …
The Vieux Nice Midday cannon: Every day at noon since around 1860, one can heard a sharp explosion in Vieux Nice. This is due to Lord Coventry, a retired British military officer who took up residence in Nice. The legend has it that his young wife was forgetting about his lunch. So to summon her, he installed a small canon …
It was the Americans in the roaring twenties which made Nice the summer paradise it is today. Before then, Nice was known as the Winter Capital. “On peut, sans crainte, avancer ceci comme un axiome: L’endroit du monde le plus agréable en hiver est cette partie du littoral méditerranéen dont le centre est marqué par Nice.” (One can, without fear, …
Via Nissa American tour of Nice looks at the French Riviera and its relationship to America. Garabaldi was an Italian hero, born in Nice (Place Garabaldi) but did you know that American President Abraham Lincoln asked Giuseppe Garabaldi in 1862 to lead the Northern Army in America’s Civil War? It was a particular challenging time for Garabaldi, as he was …
Did you know that Friedrich Nietzsche was a long term resident of Nice? While he took long promenades in St. Jean and Eze, his home was on the Rue Saint-François-de-Paule in Vieux Nice. He came to Nice due to his health problems and the excellent curative powers by which the Ville de Nice was widely known. Most of his important …
The answer is YES. There was even a store in Nice which sells mostly umbrellas? Called Parapluies Bestagno, it has existed since 1850 selling high quality, only French made umbrellas. Although M. Bestagno no longer owns the store, having retired recently, the new owners are committed to maintaining their devotion to top quality French umbrellas. A fabulous gift idea when …
