Nice

The seven-kilometre seafront the English built to stroll in winter — now the soul of the city, made for a sunset walk, a rented bike or one of the blue chairs facing the water. Do it at least twice, once at each end of the day.

The old town is the best of Nice — narrow ochre lanes hung with washing, baroque churches, gelato and pastis, and a different tiny square every turn. More Italian than French, and made for getting happily lost before dinner.

The old town's great market square — flowers and Provençal produce most mornings, antiques on Mondays, and a fringe of cafés for the ritual coffee. Come early for the colour, and buy socca or a slice of pissaladière to eat on the hoof.

The green headland between the old town and the port, where the castle once stood — climb (or take the free lift) for the postcard view straight down the curve of the bay and its blue water. A waterfall, a park, and the best sunset in the city.

Nice on a plate — a thin chickpea-flour pancake baked in a copper pan, scraped up, cracked with black pepper and eaten hot with your fingers. A euro or two at a market stall or an old-town hole in the wall. Get it fresh or not at all.

The whole point of a warm-water city — the sea here is a startling blue and swimmable from May to October. The beach is pebbles, so hire a mat or grab a lounger at a private club, and get in early before the crowd.

The city's grand red-ochre square, checkerboard paving underfoot and the tram gliding across it, lit at night by the strange glowing figures on their poles. The hinge between the old town, the shops and the seafront park.

Matisse lived and worked in Nice for decades, and left the city a red-ochre villa full of his work among the olive trees of Cimiez. Small, sunny and personal — the light he painted is right outside the window.

The finest single collection of Chagall's work, built around his huge, dreamlike Biblical Message canvases in a purpose-built pavilion with a garden and stained glass. Even museum-sceptics come out glad they went.

A full-blown Russian Orthodox cathedral, pink brick and six onion domes, built for the Tsars' aristocrats who wintered here — the grandest of its kind outside Russia, and a total surprise a few streets from the station.

The photogenic old harbour, tall painted houses reflected in the water and yachts at the quay — antique shops by day, and some of the best restaurants and late bars in Nice by night. The local's evening, away from the old-town crowds.

The old town after dark is where the city drinks — tiny wine bars, rooftop terraces and packed lanes around Place Rossetti, all within a stumble of each other. Start with a pastis, follow the noise, and let the night find its own shape.

The long green park that runs from the sea up through the middle of the city — lawns, a mirror-of-water fountain kids run through all summer, and shade when the seafront bakes. The nicest way to walk from Place Masséna to the old town.

The city's other great export — a real salade niçoise (no potato, no cooked veg, the locals will tell you), or its portable cousin, the pan-bagnat, the same thing crammed into an olive-oil-soaked bun. Lunch, sorted, for a few euros.

The pink-domed grande dame of the Promenade, a 1913 palace hotel that's a monument in its own right — peek into the lavish lobby, then walk the seafront line of Belle Époque facades that made Nice the winter capital of Europe.