Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Nice
Cimiez and the Promenade des Anglais in six hours
Chagall and Matisse on the hill, the Franciscan garden where Matisse is buried, and the long walk back along the bay.
The Romans built their town on the hill of Cimiez rather than by the sea, and the rich winter visitors of the 1890s followed them up there. Matisse lived and is buried there, and Chagall gave the city a museum at its foot. This route takes the two painters in the morning, comes down to Place Masséna by bus, and finishes with the walk along the Promenade des Anglais.
The route, stop by stop
-
Musée Marc Chagall
Built to hold the seventeen large paintings of his Biblical Message, which Chagall gave to France and saw hung here in 1973.
60 min here Walk here → -
Musée Matisse
Arrive by bus from the previous stop
A 17th-century red villa among the olive trees of Cimiez, holding work from every period of a painter who lived in Nice for almost forty years.
60 min here Walk here → -
Monastère de Cimiez
A Franciscan monastery with a rose garden overlooking the city. Matisse and Raoul Dufy are buried in the cemetery beside it.
30 min here Walk here → -
Place Masséna
Arrive by bus from the previous stop
The red-ochre square at the centre, where seven figures by Jaume Plensa sit on tall poles and light up after dark.
15 min here Walk here → -
Promenade des Anglais
Seven kilometres along the Baie des Anges, named after the English winter residents who paid for the first path in the 1820s. Sit on a blue chair; everyone does.
40 min here Walk here → -
Hôtel Negresco
The palace hotel of 1913, whose pink dome, the story goes, was modelled on the figure of a famous courtesan.
15 min here Walk here →
More walks in Nice
More in Nice
Every walking route in Nice, the full Nice guide for where to stay and what a day costs, or walks in other cities.