Carré d'Or

The Carré d'Or fits within a rectangle you can cross on foot in five minutes: the Promenade to the south, boulevard Victor-Hugo to the north, and between the two, streets that run straight down to the sea. This is the Nice of 1900 buildings: white cornices, shutters, mosaic lobbies. The ground floors are shared between galleries, practices and a few restaurants that do not shout.

Local life starts at the Buffa market on rue de la Buffa. You shop there in the morning, you run into your neighbours, and the afternoon belongs to the café terraces of rue de France. The sea is never an expedition: four hundred metres at most, the time it takes to walk down in sandals.

The Negresco, standing on the Promenade since 1913, acts as the district's lighthouse. In the evening the light comes from the west and runs along the façades. That is when the Carré d'Or looks most like its name.

Market-wise, the district remains the centre’s reference: étages nobles with high ceilings, top floors with terraces, few mediocre flats. Decent properties go quickly; the best ones often never appear online.