Things to Do in Nice: Itineraries, Costs and Food

Go in the morning for the market and again after 7pm when the restaurant terraces fill up. Midday in summer heat is the least interesting time to be here.

This is a working market, not a photo op, though it's plenty photogenic. Buy socca from one of the stalls and eat it standing up, it's meant to be hot.

Bike and blade rentals line the route. Early morning before the heat and the crowds is when locals actually use it for exercise, not just tourists for photos.

No castle survives, just the hilltop it stood on, but the viewpoint over the bay and the old town roofs is the best free view in the city. A free elevator (lift) runs partway up.

In Cimiez, a bus ride or a real uphill walk from the center. Worth pairing with the Roman ruins and the Franciscan monastery next door on the same hill.

Holds the largest public collection of Chagall's work anywhere, built around his Biblical Message series. Closer to the center than the Matisse museum, an easy add to a Cimiez day.

The 7-kilometre seafront boulevard along the Baie des Anges, used for walking, cycling and rollerblading, with rental bikes and blades available along the route. Free and pleasant, especially at sunset. It gets exposed and windy, the beach itself is pebble, not sand.

A hilltop park above the old town with the ruins of a medieval castle, waterfall, and a free panoramic viewpoint over the bay, the port and the rooftops of Vieux Nice. Free, and the best view in the city for zero cost. There's a lift up for a small fee if you don't want to climb the steps.

One of Europe's largest annual carnivals, held every February in Nice with illuminated parades, giant floats and the flower battle (bataille de fleurs) along the promenade. Genuinely a spectacle, but hotel prices spike hard during the run and the main parade routes are ticketed, not free.

The old town's tangle of narrow ochre-colored streets, Baroque churches and small squares, centred around Cours Saleya's flower and craft market. Best in the morning before it fills up. It's a genuinely nice place to just walk, no single sight is the point.

A permanent collection of Matisse's work housed in a 17th-century villa in the Cimiez neighbourhood, where the artist lived for much of his later life. Free entry to the permanent collection and a genuinely strong museum without the crowds of the seafront. Worth the tram ride out.

Cooked in huge round copper pans over wood fire, cut into wedges, eaten hot with black pepper and your hands. A Nice signature, not found the same way elsewhere.

A round bread roll packed with tuna, hard-boiled egg, olives, tomato and anchovy, essentially a salade nicoise pressed into a sandwich. Good picnic food for the beach.

The real version has no cooked vegetables and no potato, just tomato, egg, olives, anchovy and raw vegetables. Menus vary widely on this and it's a genuine local pet peeve when a tourist menu adds both.

An onion tart topped with anchovies and black olives, no cheese, cooked low and slow until the onions turn jammy. Distinct from pizza and often mistaken for it by first-time visitors.

A Nice-region dish before it was a Pixar movie. Look for versions where each vegetable is cooked separately before combining, the more careful way to make it.

Tomatoes, courgettes and onions stuffed with a bread and meat or vegetable filling, a home-style dish that shows up on set menus more than tourist-facing ones.

A family-run sandwich kiosk by the Marché de la Libération, going since long before social media, known for pan bagnat and other Nicois classics made with market produce. This isn't new or viral, it's just the correct answer and it's still operating with strong recent reviews. Skip the socca-and-selfie spots in Vieux Nice and go here instead.

The daily produce and food market north of the old town, less touristed than the Cours Saleya market in Vieux Nice, surrounded by the stalls and kiosks locals actually shop. A market, not a business, so there's nothing to close or disappoint you. Go in the morning before it packs up.

A crop of young Nice chefs are putting the classic chickpea flatbread into gastronomic menus, playing with fillings and toppings instead of serving it plain off a market griddle. The old-school stalls at Cours Saleya are still the honest version. This is the same dish dressed up, fun to try once but not a replacement for the original.

A premium doner kebab shop that started in Nice is now franchising internationally, with expansion reportedly reaching as far as Times Square. Try the original Nice shop before it becomes just another chain. The kebab itself gets consistently good reviews.

A new restaurant from the Agitateurs group at Nice's port blends Mediterranean and Asian cooking, picked up by Le Figaro and Le Point as a credible, non-gimmicky fusion concept. Backed by a group with a real track record, so this isn't a one-off. Reserve ahead given the write-ups.

Maritozzo, a cream-stuffed Italian brioche bun, is starting to show up in Nice bakeries given the city's closeness to Italy and interest in Italian pastry. Still more novelty than a real wave. Spotted in only a couple of spots so far. Grab one if you see it, skip planning a bakery crawl around it.