By Garen Ajderhanyan · · 7 min read
In brief
The Promenade des Anglais began in the early nineteenth century as a simple dirt path funded by the English colony in Nice, an initiative traditionally attributed to the Reverend Lewis Way. Locals called it the camin dei Inglés. Widened, extended and planted with palms throughout the nineteenth century, it became the avenue that now lines the Baie des Anges for roughly seven kilometres. Since 2021 it has stood at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage site 'Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera'.
How was the Promenade des Anglais born?
Picture the Nice seafront of the early nineteenth century: a pebble shore, a few fishing boats, and between the town and the water a windswept strip of ground. Nothing marked this edge out to become an avenue. Nice then turned its back on the sea, which was a place of work, not of leisure.
It was the English colony settled in Nice that changed the way the town looked at its shore. In the early nineteenth century a subscription was raised to fund a path along the sea, an initiative traditionally attributed to the Reverend Lewis Way. The chronicles add that the works gave employment to labourers hit by harsh winters. The result was modest: a dirt path, barely wide enough for two people abreast. But it introduced a new gesture on this coast: walking beside the sea for no purpose at all, simply for the pleasure of it.
Why the name?
The people of Nice did not wait for an official christening. They called the path the camin dei Inglés, the way of the English, in the Niçois dialect. The name said everything: who had paid for it, and who walked there. When the town later made the French name official, it was merely confirming popular usage.
The story of the winter visitors who came down to Nice in the cold season is often told; I have told it elsewhere in these pages. What interests me here is something simpler: that an avenue can carry, two centuries on, the exact memory of its first walkers in its own name. Few streets anywhere keep such a precise trace of their reason for being.
How has the avenue evolved?
The path did not become an avenue overnight. Throughout the nineteenth century it was widened, raised and extended westwards in successive campaigns. Nice's union with France in 1860 quickened the pace: the new town was now being built facing the sea, and the Promenade became its façade.
The Belle Époque gave it its setting: grand hotels, pale façades, balustrades, and those palm trees that came to belong to the landscape as much as the sea itself. In the twentieth century the avenue reached its present width, admitted the motor car, and gained its side lanes and pergolas. Through every stage one constant remained: the seaward pavement, broad, continuous, reserved for walking. The avenue has changed a hundred times; the original gesture, never.
What does the Promenade look like today?
Today the Promenade des Anglais runs for roughly seven kilometres along the Baie des Anges, from the airport to the edge of the old town, where the quai des États-Unis takes over. It lives to an almost unchanging timetable: runners at dawn, bicycles and pushchairs in the morning, the blue chairs occupied as soon as the sun settles in, evening walkers as the light falls across the bay. Since 2021 it has stood at the heart of the site 'Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera', inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
From our windows at 107 Promenade des Anglais, I watch it every day. What strikes me is not its setting but its constancy: two centuries after the camin dei Inglés, people do exactly what they did on the first day. They walk, facing the sea, for no reason at all. Few works of urban design can claim such fidelity to their original intention.
Frequently asked questions
- Who paid for the first path of the Promenade des Anglais?
- The English colony settled in Nice, by subscription, in the early nineteenth century. The initiative is traditionally attributed to the Reverend Lewis Way. The chronicles record that the works also gave employment to local labourers hit by hard winters.
- What does camin dei Inglés mean?
- 'The way of the English', in the Niçois dialect. It is the name locals gave the path from the start, before any official designation. Today's Promenade des Anglais is its French translation.
- How long is the Promenade des Anglais?
- Roughly seven kilometres along the Baie des Anges, from Nice airport to the edge of the old town, where it continues as the quai des États-Unis.
- Is the Promenade des Anglais listed or protected?
- It stands at the heart of the site 'Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera', inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2021 for its riviera resort-town urbanism.
- Where do the blue chairs come from?
- They appeared on the front de mer in the twentieth century and became the Promenade's familiar furniture. Turned towards the sea, they sum up what the avenue is for: sitting down and looking at the Baie des Anges.
References
Districts
The author
Garen AjderhanyanEditor of La Gazette de la Promenade
Editor of La Gazette de la Promenade. He writes on Riviera property and the art of living, from Nice.