Nice, “city of the Riviera winter resort”, listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site

Published on : 07/27/2021 – 4:50 PM

Nice was classified Tuesday, July 27 as a Unesco World Heritage Site as “the city of the Riviera winter resort”. “The history of Nice, both rooted and open, Mediterranean and Alpine, European and cosmopolitan, has produced a unique architecture and landscape, a model for a large number of other cities in the world”, welcomed the Mayor Christian Estrosi.

“This inscription establishes Nice as the archetype of the winter resort of the Riviera with its exceptional site, between sea and mountains, and the various influences which have shaped its heritage”, greeted the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot on Twitter.

Until the dawn of the 19th century, Nice was an old town in the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia framed by a hill with a destroyed castle and the Paillon river. The travel accounts of the Scottish writer Tobias Smollett, published around 1766, will then put it in fashion and in particular captivate the English public.

A tourist town for four centuries

A new town then developed to become a veritable “winter capital” for wealthy idlers, rentiers and aristocrats, before 1850, where parks and walks were created to enjoy the outdoors. Exotic species, such as palm trees or orange trees, will populate the peeled land.

“From the end of the 18th century, Nice was the first site of this coast, considered until then not very hospitable and difficult to access, on which a winter resort activity developed. It is therefore in Nice. that were first discovered the attractions of what will become the Riviera in the later sense of the term: the particular picturesque landscapes resulting from the proximity of the mountain and the sea, the mild winter climate, the exoticism of the vegetation and even, to a certain degree, the singularity of the ways of life of the natives “, recalled the city in a press kit.

First representative of this “riviera resort”, Nice welcomes late 19th / early 20th century some 150,000 residents in winter, of all origins – from the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, then all over Europe and America. The result is a superb architectural heritage still visible today – hotels, villas, and buildings intended for rental.

With AFP