Where to live in Nice according to your project?

Why is "the best district in Nice" the wrong question?

I am often asked, at first meetings, which is "the best district in Nice". I invariably reply that the question is wrongly put. A flat that brings happiness to a London couple three weeks a year would bring unhappiness to a family with two school-age children. Here, then, is the city as I practise it, classified not by district but by project.

You are seeking a pied-à-terre with sea view: Promenade des Anglais or Carré d'Or?

For a pied-à-terre, I look first at two things: the view and the ease of arrival. On both counts, the seafront is difficult to bypass. The buildings on the Promenade des Anglais offer what no one else in the city can offer: the sea in the foreground, with nothing in front, and the airport at the western end of the same avenue. One lands, one is home shortly after. For someone coming from Geneva or Milan for a long weekend, this argument weighs more heavily than all others.

The Carré d'Or, just set back, plays another tune. One often loses the sea in the foreground, one gains the bourgeois buildings of the early twentieth century, the ceiling heights, the shops at the foot of the building. It is the district for those who wish to go down to buy the newspaper in slippers, if I may say so. Between the two, everything comes down to use: contemplation or immersion.

You are settling with family: Cimiez, Mont Boron or les Musiciens?

A family installation changes all the criteria. The view comes behind quiet, space, schools, parking.

Cimiez is the classic answer, and it remains correct. The hill of the former winter visitors has kept from that era its large buildings, its gardens, the arenas and the Régina, where Matisse lived, which the Niçois readily recall. It is a district where one hears the birds, which is not a figure of speech in Nice. Its counterpart: one lives there with a car, and one must accept being on a hill, therefore going down into town rather than being in it.

Mont Boron, to the east, offers a steeper variant: houses and residences in greenery around the Mont Alban fort, views that extend on one side over the Baie des Anges, on the other towards the Villefranche roadstead. I have a weakness for that side, I admit it. But I advise against it without a car, and I say so at every visit.

The Musiciens district, finally, is the choice of families who do not wish to leave the town plan. Streets named after composers, Belle Époque buildings, station nearby. Less garden, more convenience. Certain families prefer this, and they have their reasons.

You are preparing a retirement residence: which district ages well?

For retirement, my principal criterion is prosaic: everything must be doable on foot, today and in fifteen years. A flat perched at the top of a hill, with no shops within twenty minutes' walk, is a poor retirement choice, whatever its view.

Cimiez works for those who drive and want absolute quiet. But I also think, and increasingly, of the Libération sector: the daily market, the hall of the former gare du Sud converted, the tram, a neighbourhood life where the shopkeepers know you. It is less expected than Cimiez in a conversation about retirement in Nice, and it is precisely for that reason that I mention it. The Carré d'Or remains moreover a solid answer: flat, central, served by everything.

A point I check systematically for this type of project: the lift, its width, and the building's access from the street. The charm of the old sometimes has steps.

You are investing in rental: Port, Libération or Vieux-Nice?

I shall not give figures here, they change, and an in-depth article is not the right place to fix them. But the logic is stable.

The Port district, around the Lympia basin and the place Île de Beauté, has changed status: the coloured facades, the antique dealers, the restaurants have made it a sector sought after by a young and international clientele, year-round as well as seasonal. Libération attracts year-round rental driven by the market and the tram. The Vieux-Nice, much in demand for short-term, imposes its constraints: old buildings, floors without lift, and a framework for seasonal letting that must be examined case by case.

My professional view: in rental, the co-ownership rules and municipal regulations count more than the charm of the street. That is where I begin every study, never with the photographs.

You are seeking above all an art of living: Vieux-Nice or Port?

There remains the least rational and most human project: living in Nice for Nice. For the market at cours Saleya, the evening socca, the baroque alleyways, the aperitif that stretches out.

The Vieux-Nice is the most intense setting in the city, and the most demanding. Pedestrian, noisy, lively late. One lives there as one lives in an Italian historic centre: with happiness if one likes it, with difficulty otherwise. I say so plainly to purchasers who idealise it from a holiday rental in September.

The Port offers, in my view, the best art of living compromise in the present city: animation without excess, the sea without the seafront, terraces in the evening and relative quiet at night. It is the district I most often recommend to those who hesitate, which is perhaps the definition of a good district.

How to decide, practically?

My method consists of three steps. First, write down in black and white the actual use: how many weeks per year, with whom, with or without car. Next, spend an ordinary day in the intended district, a Tuesday, not a Saturday in July. Finally, visit at least one property in a district one had not considered. On this last point, my experience is stubborn: a notable proportion of our clients purchase elsewhere than where they were looking when they arrived.