Things to do

-Museums. An essential one is the Matisse Museum, devoted to the artist who spent much of his life in the area. It’s housed in a Genoese villa from the 1600s and boasts an excellent collection of painting and sculptures. At Cimiez there’s a museum with artefacts and other displays relating to local life in Roman times.

-Dining. There’s a wonderful variety of eateries in the city, and a number of interesting local specialties to try. The most famous is salade nicoise, with boiled eggs, potatoes, anchovies and tuna. Other favourites are fish soup, pan bagnat, which is an upmarket tuna sandwich, and socca, a chickpea flatbread.

-Beaches. The Nice waterfront is a sequence of public and private beaches, most of which are pebbled, but always well maintained. Private options are often a little more convenient as they offer extra services like sunbeds and lockers. The best are Plage Beau Rivage, Castel Plage and Opera Plage, which is the oldest beach club in the city.

-The Old Town and Promenade des Anglais. Nice’s attractive historic quarter, with its painted buildings, definitely merits some exploration, especially in the summer when the narrow streets are shaded from the sun. Meanwhile the Promenade des Anglais is Nice’s famed waterfront, extending for a number of kilometres and featuring impressive turn of the century buildings.

-Coastal scenery. Just outside the city are a number of excellent lookouts offering unforgettable views of the city and Mediterranean. One can be found at Mont Boron, almost 200 metres above the sea and part of a natural park. The nearby village of ze is the trailhead for memorable coastal walks on the way to Monaco or Cap Ferrat.

Weather in Nice

On holiday at a Nice villa you’ll get Mediterranean weather. Conditions here are moderate all year round, with mild and damp winters, when daily highs reach the mid teens. Spring and autumn weather is a mixture of mild and moderately warm weather – maximum temperatures for April and November are usually in the high teens. The period between May and September is the ideal time for a beach holiday, with very little rainfall and temperatures that rest comfortably around the mid or high-20s during the day.

Travel to Nice

You can reach the city via Nice – Cote d’Azur (NCE) – it’s the third busiest after Paris’ airports and can be reached from the UK via premium and low-cost airlines. Nice has international rail links from Nice-Ville to a number of European countries, and Paris is within a six-hour trip. Cars aren't essential at villas in Nice - there’s a good public transport system, which includes buses and a tramline that was reinstated in 2007. The roads can be busy, and taxis are costly, but a bike rental scheme was instated in 2009 to local acclaim.