The hills and gardens of Nice: where does the city breathe?

What do you see from the colline du Château?

You climb the colline du Château by the steps from Vieux-Nice or up the slope from the port. The ascent asks a little of you: flights of stairs, shaded landings, pines that smell warm from early morning. Then the ground levels out and the city turns to face you. On one side, the tiled rooftops of Vieux-Nice and the curve of the Baie des Anges; on the other, the port, its ochre façades and the hills to the east.

The castle itself no longer exists. The citadel that once dominated the city was razed in the early eighteenth century, and you have to accept this on arrival: you are visiting an absence. What remains is a park, some vestiges, a nineteenth-century artificial waterfall you hear before you see, and the cimetière du Château, suspended above the sea. I go up regularly, early, when the paths still belong to the blackbirds.

Which gardens will you find in Cimiez?

Cimiez is a different geography. The hill stretches north of the centre, higher, more residential, marked by the grand hotels of the wintering era. Its green heart is the parc des arènes: an old olive grove, gnarled trunks, a filtered light that changes the temperature of the body at the height of summer. Families settle on the grass, children run between the trees, and the whole keeps a simplicity that few urban parks manage to hold on to.

At the edge of the plateau stand the Cimiez monastery and its gardens: formal beds, a rose garden, a kitchen garden, and a terrace opening over the city down to the sea. A few steps away, the Roman ruins of ancient Cemenelum, the arena, the baths, recall that the hill was inhabited long before the seafront. You pass from olive trees to Roman stone in a few minutes' walk.

Where else can you find green in Nice?

To the west, near the mouth of the Var, Parc Phoenix gathers a collection of plants and birds under a large greenhouse and around its ponds. It is another register, botanical and family-minded, away from the historic hills. In the city centre, the promenade du Paillon has returned to pedestrians a green corridor running down towards the sea along the course of the covered river, between lawns, water jets and Mediterranean species.

Why does greenery matter in a dense city?

Nice is a city pressed between sea and mountain. The built fabric is continuous, the streets of the old centre are narrow, and summer bears down. The hills and parks are therefore not a backdrop: they organise daily life. People go to them for shade, for relative quiet, for a horizon. At La Gazette, I notice how much the nearness of a park shapes the way people inhabit a neighbourhood, the regulars of Cimiez build their mornings around the olive grove as others do around the market.

My advice fits in one sentence: take the hills on foot, with no programme. The colline du Château for the view, Cimiez for slowness, Parc Phoenix for the children. The city makes more sense from above.