Nice, the capital of the Riviera, the fifth largest city in France and the home of the country’s second busiest airport was once the seaside retreat for the English aristocracy at the turn of the last century. And although it still has some of the character of the “Grande Dame of the Côte d’Azur,” there is much more history than a stroll along the promenade des Anglais with its Belle Époque splendor might first suggest.

It doesn’t take long to get a feel for the layout of Nice. The old town groups about the hill of Nice’s former château, a previously rough but now fast-gentrifying pocket of narrow crammed streets centering on place Rossetti and the Baroque Cathédrale St. Réparate. Nearby is the entrance to the parc du Château (also reachable by lift from the eastern end of rue des Ponchettes), decked out in a mock-Grecian style dating back to the original Greek settlement of Nikea, from where the modern city gets its name. The point of the climb, apart from the sweet-smelling greenery, is the view stretching west and over the muddle of the old town’s rooftops. The limits of the old town are marked by boulevard Jean-Jaurès, on which the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain holds a collection of Pop Art and neo-Realist work, including pieces by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Beyond here, place Masséna, and the spine of the center, avenue Jean-Médecin, represent the commercial heart of Nice, while – a short walk south – the promenade des Anglais was laid out by 19th century English residents for their afternoon sea-breeze stroll.

Up above the city-center, the upmarket suburb of Cimiez was the social center of the town’s elite some 17 centuries ago, when the city was capital of the Roman province of Alps-Miritimae. Excavations of the Roman baths are housed, along with accompanying archeological finds, in the Archaelogical Museum. Overlooking the baths, the Museum Matisse is home to a collection of work by the artist, who spent most of his life in Nice. The collection covers every period and includes models for the chapel in Vence, a nearly complete set of the bronze sculptures, and a complete set of the books that Matisse illustrated. Among the paintings are a 1905 portrait of Madame Matisse, “A Tempest in Nice,” and the 1947, “Still Life with Pomegranites.” At the foot of the hill, just off boulevard Cimiez on avenue du Docteur-Menard, there is more modern art in Chagall’s Biblical Message, housed in a museum opened by the artist Marc Chagall in 1972. The 17th paintings are all based on the Old Testament and complemented with etchings, engravings, tapestries and mosaics, all perfectly set off by the light. Chagall himself contributed the stained-glass windows.

Nice is sophisticated, has all of life’s luxuries, and a superb setting on the Baie des Anges (“the Bay of Angels”) facing Antibes, yet it is nonetheless discreetly Mediterranean in its way of doing municipal business. In the 1970’s, Graham Greene, a long-time resident from across the bay, wrote a controversial pamphlet entitled J’Accuse! which highlighted some of the things he saw as questionable practices. He subsequently lost his libel case.