Nice Vieille Ville — Old town of Nice.

The Tower of Saint François and old town -view from above

I love old towns. Be it Gamla stan in Stockholm, or Montmartre in Paris…Purani Delhi in India or  Barcelona’s gothic district in Spain – all have fascinated me from time to time. Vieux Nice is no exception. I love the old towns for two reasons. First of all , they have a cozy feeling. Old bars, narrow stoney streets, warm receptions from the old coffee shop owners  , traditional foods like no where in the town … I love it all. Whatever you think is not found in our shopping malls, all are there in the old town. Secondly , somehow old towns take me back in history. They are like time machines. The smell, taste and visual ..all are somehow different from that very world we live in. It is like magic , and I know I am just falling short of words while describing it. 🙂

  

Old Nice has a famous flower and fruit market. Best Olives from Italy come here through the port. While walking across the street , you would catch a whiff of fresh rose, violet or mimosa. The fresh and dried  fruits  are available. And the breads! I am a bread lover and here I wished airlines would have allowed me to take a ton of cargo  😥

 

Olives from Italy

And some more

Old town also have a big fish and meat market. You can see flying and resting seagulls all over the place and shopkeepers trying to get rid of them. Their beaks are quite sharp and they are extremely clever in stealing fish from the market.

     

seagull waiting in Fish market

The narrow streets

 

 

 

  

You can have a real culinary experience in this area, having many old nice cafes. Socca, a thin flat pancake and Salade Niçoise, a salad with raw veggies , black olives and fish and boiled egg , are two of them, you may want to go for. Surprisingly , the markets change onto arts and crafts and antique markets in some days of a week.

  

 

Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate

The old town of Nice houses the beautiful Baroque style building – Saint Réparate Cathedral at Paéace Rossetti. It has many remarkable oil paintings  and one of the famous cathedral in Nice. From this church , we took a lane which leads to steps for Castle Hill. Castle hill is the perfect place to obtain panoramic snaps of the old town. The red-tiled roof tops produce a magnificent view, so we clicked some. There is a park and a cemetery. The Castle hill bears some ruins of the old town which was originally built up here.       

I would love to visit this place again and again…

 

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