PLACE IN THE SUN : Nice, Sensual Capital of the French Riviera, Always Seems Warmer and Brighter Than Wherever You’ve Just Come From

THE AIR FRANCE AIRBUS FROM gray, icy Paris changes key, eases down through the clouds and banks out over the Mediterranean. Suddenly, below us, Nice shines. Red tile roofs burn dimly in the late winter sun; white apartment blocks glow against brown and green hills. The Baie des Anges, or Bay of the Angels, around which Nice curves gently, is a patchwork of muted turquoise (the shade of the veined ceramic balusters on villa terraces all over this stretch of coastline), deep marine blue (a blue that seems to have no bottom), pale sky blue, murky blue with notes of purple, avocado green, sea green, seaweed brown and more. We swoop down close to the water and land at its very edge, on a runway built out into the bay at the Aeroport de Nice--Cote d’Azur.

This is a typical arrival in Nice. One always seems to be approaching it from some place colder and less bright. And whether glimpsed first from the air or from the autoroute , it always looks warm, handsomely illuminated, welcoming. Its sunny, intensely colored, mild-tempered atmosphere is so immediately, sensually engaging that the visitor’s first reaction, upon stepping onto local soil, is likely to be a smile, fueled by a suffusion of well-being.

Nice is the capital of the Cote d’Azur or Azur Coast--the French Riviera, the glamorous maritime extension of Provence. Bordered in the west by the Var River and in the east by a string of little mountains--Mont Boron, Mont Alban, Mont Vinaigrier and Mont Gros--running inland from the sea, Nice is the fifth-largest city in France, with a population approaching 400,000. It is a city composed of vastly different quartiers , or neighborhoods, from sterile condominium communities to North African slums, from blocks of boring petit bourgeois apartment blocks to clusters of elegant mansions hidden behind high walls and bougainvillea, from workaday shopping streets to grand boulevards and squares.

It is a city full of art, with museums devoted to Matisse and Chagall, to naive and contemporary painting and sculpture, to local artists and the local past. It boasts a flashy casino and several major agglomerations of convention facilities. Its Promenade des Anglais, which curves right along with the coastline from the edge of the airport to the Jardin Albert 1er, is one of the most famous and graceful seafront esplanades in the world. (The promenade was named in honor of the local English colony, which constructed it in 1820.)

The historic and sentimental heart of Nice, though, and the portion of the city likely to appeal most urgently to the senses, is a large, irregular wedge of real estate in its southeastern precincts. The blunt end of this wedge is the far bank of the Vieux Port, or Old Port; it tapers off in the gardens just past the Place Massena. Within this area are not only that port and that square, but also the hilltop park known as Le Chateau (though there hasn’t actually been a chateau on the site since 1706), the hilly pedestrian quarter of Vieux Nice (probably the closest thing to an Italian hill town that exists on French soil), the famous flower and produce market on the Cours Saleya--and a stylish continuation of the Promenade des Anglais called the Quai des Etats-Unis, or Quay of the United States. Within this wedge, as far as I’m concerned, is the real Nice.

The Old Port is sort of a deckle-cut rectangular basin, long and narrow. Its innermost portion, the Bassin Lympia, is crowded with modest pleasure craft and a ragtag fleet of dinghies and outboards. A bit farther out, in the Bassin des Amiraux, six or eight small commercial fishing boats still dock with their just-caught seafood--turbot, red mullet, monkfish, squid, octopus, occasional spiny lobsters and the like.

On the quay behind the fishing boats is the Marche aux Puces de Nice, or Nice Flea Market, a little clapboard village of 33 stands, at which everything from crystal and lace to military badges and antique dolls can be found. A far better flea market, though, arrays itself every Monday to the west of the port, around the Quai Rauba-Capeu (the “Hat Thief Quay,” so named for its capricious breezes), on the Cours Saleya. This is an astonishing bazaar--100 or more stands and tables stretch down the length of this beautiful passage. Buildings in shades of ocher, terra cotta, white, off-white and pink frame the tile-paved Cours. Through the center of it runs a line of yellow canopies. Beneath these and on every side, out in the all-but-inevitable sun, a veritable panoply of goods is offered--rusty old locks and keys, exquisite Lalique vases, antique cameras, miniature perfume bottles, lots of silverware and linen and glasses, books, old postcards, LPs (remember LPs?), lacy baby clothes, paintings, jewelry real and otherwise--even albums full of clothing labels (a 1950s Lacoste polo shirt label, for instance--for about $30!).

Riches of another sort are sold in the same spot Tuesday through Sunday mornings--flowers, vegetables, fruits and miscellaneous products from local farms. This market, renowned all over France, is at once manageable in size and incredibly seductive, and is a must to visit--even if you’re staying in a hotel and have no place to cook. The stalls explode with color; the scents of tuberoses, olives, fresh cheese and dried herbs fill the air; the chatter of the market-goers--punctuated by the often bawdy cries of the sellers--is rough, beguiling music.

The particulars vary with the season, of course. One day last spring, for instance, there were cherries everywhere--morellos, pigeon hearts, reverchons--and apricots and peaches. There were eggplants, some long and thin and purple, others round and white or off-white tinged with violet. Earth-brown mushrooms were heaped here and there, exuding their elemental fragrance. Tiny potatoes, bulbs of fennel, purple artichokes with long stems, fat asparagus, gnarled sweet carrots and great bushy bundles of fresh herbs accented almost every stand. I bought a juicy white peach, eating it messily as I strolled along. Then I bought a serving of the quintessential Nicois street food --socca.

Socca is a thin, crumbly, crepe-like thing made from chickpea (garbanzo) flour, olive oil, salt and water. It is traditionally cooked over a wood fire in wide, black iron pans, dusted with black pepper and cut into triangular slices when done and wrapped in paper. It is sold at stands and shops and tiny restaurants all over Vieux Nice, and elsewhere in town, but there’s something particularly appealing about buying it here in the market. The woman who sells it is fond of good-natured double-entendres (“You’re my first man this morning,” she once told me with a wink when I showed up at her stand just after the first socca was done.). And her easy familiarity, coupled with the flavor and aroma of this hot, peppery, earthy local specialty, always makes me feel as if Nice has accepted me, or at least welcomed me back.

Abutting the Cours Saleya and climbing gradually uphill is the old town, the warren of narrow stone streets called Vieux Nice. The real “old Nice” though--where the city was born--must be sought in two other locations, one nearby, one not. The farther site, a few miles to the north, is the hill of Cimiez--where the Romans established their regional capital of Cemenelum in 14 BC. The nearer one, straight uphill from the old town and the Cours Saleya, is the hill of Le Chateau. Here, about 350 years before the Romans, Phocean Greeks from Marseille had established a minor trading town called Nikaia--”She who brings victory.” The two settlements developed simultaneously, but by the 5th Century AD, most of the inhabitants of Cimiez had moved to the more agreeable (and more easily defended) site nearer the sea. First on the hilltop and then spilling down the slopes to the bay, Nikaia became Nice.

Though Cimiez is beyond the confines of my favored wedge of the city, I love going there. The Roman and paleo-Christian ruins are elegantly simple and evocative; there’s a superb archeological museum; the city’s newly improved and expanded Matisse Museum, in a 17th-Century villa with dark terra cotta walls and trompe l’oeil balustrades, displays an attractively miscellaneous collection of Matisse artifacts, early paintings and drawings, liturgical designs and more, and an architecturally spare but richly furnished Franciscan monastery, in whose cemetery Matisse and Raoul Dufy are buried, serves as a quiet spiritual anchor to the spot. From certain vantage points here, it is possible to see Roman remains, the Matisse villa, the monastery’s thin spire, an observatory dome across the way on Mont Gros and the ornate late 19th-Century Hotel Regina (now turned into luxury apartments), all in one frame of vision. It feels like an eccentric diorama of 2,000 years or so of Nicois history.

The hill of Le Chateau, when seen from the quay at night, is an imposing, mysterious sight. It is selectively (and skillfully) spotlighted to fine effect, white or yellow beams exposing a patch of green here, vignettes of amber there--and illuminating the course of a cascade spilling down the hillside. During the day, on the top of the hill, mystery is replaced by scenes of outdoor domesticity--children scrambling over playground gear, families spread out with picnic lunches on the thick grass, couples sipping coffee, or pastis , at the little buvette , or snack bar. Beyond occasional shards of ancient wall and a rather banal 16th-Century bastion called the Tour Bellanda (which now houses a small naval museum), there isn’t much to see here--but this summit, rarely visited by tourists precisely because of its lack of attractions, offers wonderful views of the city and bay and welcome respite from the sometimes loud and crowded streets below.

Facing the Quai des Etats-Unis, a staircase and an elevator lead up to Le Chateau; the tariff for the latter is about 65 cents one way, $1 round-trip. I always buy the one-way billet, then walk down the back side of the hill, straight into Vieux Nice. I’ve already compared this quarter to an Italian town. There’s a good reason for its Italianate flavor: From 1388 until 1792, and again from 1814 until 1860, Nice and its region belonged to the Italian dynasty of the House of Savoy.

This heritage is evident all over the city, but it is particularly vivid in the old town--in architecture, language (Nissart, a dialect of Provencal liberally peppered with Italian, is still heard frequently, especially in the markets and the port), family names and, in a more elusive way, local sensibility. The streets curve almost imperceptibly, overhung with narrow iron balconies, open shutters, flower boxes, strings of laundry. The colors of the buildings are earthy but somehow distilled into memorable hues--the yellow of certain kinds of clay, the beige of desert dust, the pink of flamingos seen though hazy heat.

Occupying these structures are endless little shops, some prosaic and geared to locals (newsstands, pharmacies), others are more exotic galleries or boutiques. Scattered through the quarter, too, are many small restaurants and bars. The shops, especially the more conventional ones, bear names like Fantino, Rossetti, Ricci-Gagliolo, Caprioglio, Fuscielli. The eating and drinking places are more international. There are certainly establishments specializing in Nicois cooking (including socca and a sort of cheeseless pizza called pissaladiere ), but then there are Scarlett O’Hara’s Irish Pub, Billy’s Tex-Mex Restaurant, Pub Van Gogh, La Table Thai, Nick le Grec and Cafe de Klomp (“12 beers on tap”). Some streets wind off into dark alleys, silent, drab and damp. Others bustle with the bright signs of shops, with busy-bee tourists, strolling tourists, ambling dogs, scampering cats.

The old town’s main square is the cafe-filled Place Rosetti, onto which faces the politely baroque Cathedral of Ste. Reparate. The cathedral is worth a visit, especially for anyone who appreciates exquisitely carved wood paneling and choir stalls. Just before Christmas last year, I stepped into the place early one evening to hear a clutch of pure- if not particularly strong-voiced young women in white blouses and dark skirts sing Bach, Mozart and a selection of Provencal carols. The church was chilly and packed full, the lights were dim, the feeling was almost medieval.

After the concert, in need of both warmth and some measure of modernization, I stopped in a cafe on the Cours Saleya for a glass of wine. Then I walked down the Rue des Ponchettes, on the edge of the old town, just below Le Chateau, and had dinner at my favorite Nicois restaurant, Don Camillo. Here, a young Nice-born chef named Franck Cerutti applies sophisticated techniques to simple local cooking--producing such wonders as tender baby octopus with plump white beans, dried cod cooked with olives, pine nuts and potatoes, red mullet with socca crepes and tapenade (olive-caper puree) and stewed duck with homemade noodles.

Cerutti lives a few doors from his restaurant, which is only a few yards from the Quai des Etats-Unis, and I encountered him one spring morning several years ago leaning on the railing above the beach, just staring out at the Baie des Anges.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Just the bay,” he said. And though he had been seeing that body of water probably daily for at least 30 years, I understood why he could still find something across its reaches worth gazing at. I stood there with him in silence. This time, the water was no patchwork at all. It was a single color, a subtle blue-tinged green, darkening ever so slightly toward the horizon. The sun, still traveling up from the east, was brilliant yellow--a morning sun anticipating midday. The sky was bright blue overhead, pinkish on the edges.

“It’s not bad, eh?” said Cerutti finally.

“No,” I said, “not bad at all.”

GUIDEBOOK

A Nice Place to Visit

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Telephone numbers and prices: The country code for France is 33. French area codes are incorporated into phone numbers, so no additional codes are necessary. All prices are approximate and computed at the rate of 5.8 French francs to the dollar. Hotel prices are for a double room for one night. Restaurant prices are for dinner for two, food only.

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Getting there: Delta Airlines offers connecting flights from Los Angeles to Nice via New York four times weekly. There are also numerous daily nonstop flights from Paris to Nice; Air France flies from Charles de Gaulle Airport and Air Inter flies from Orly Airport. There are also regular nonstop flights to Nice from London, Zurich and other European capitals.

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Where to stay: Nice is full of hotels in every category. Here are three recommended establishments adjacent to Vieux Nice: Hotel Beau-Rivage, 24 Rue St-Francois-de-Paule, telephone 93-80-80-70, fax 93-80-55-77. Contemporary styling and charmingly furnished rooms in a grand 19th-Century building where both Chekhov and Matisse once lived. A favorite with divas performing at the nearby Opera de Nice. Rates: $180-$280. Hotel La Perouse, 11 Quai Rauba-Capeu, tel. 93-62-34-63, fax 93-62-59-41. My favorite. Attached to the lower reaches of the hill of Le Chateau and overlooking the bay, it’s much larger than it appears from the street, with a hidden interior terrace with swimming pool, lemon-tree-shaded breakfast area and summertime grill. Rooms with terraces on the fourth and fifth floors have spectacular views, and on the sixth floor there is an outdoor hot tub. Rooms are simple but comfortable and well-equipped. Rates: $85-$210. Primotel Suisse Nice, 15 Quai Rauba-Capeu, tel. 93-62-33-00, fax 93-85-30-70. Part of a bargain-priced chain, this hotel is right next to the La Perouse, and many of the rooms, clean and simple, have similarly good views. Facilities are much more basic, though. Location and price are the main attractions here. Rates: $70-$95.

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Where to eat: Again, the choices are numerous, but in or near Vieux Nice, these places are particularly good: Don Camillo, 5 Rue des Ponchettes, tel. 93-85-67-95, a small, family-run place serving up the savors of Nice in refined but still soulful variations, $80-$120. L’Escalinada, 22 Rue Pairoliere, tel. 93-62-11-71, a comfortable little place in the old town, serving real, home-style Nicois cooking-- raviolis , gnocchis , vegetable beignets, etc., $50. La Merenda, 4 Rue de la Terrasse, no phone, reservations are unheard of and credit cards are worthless at this tiny restaurant, and when the food runs out, the chef-proprietor hangs a sign on the door reading “ C’est fini .” The cooking is superb, though, and as authentically local as can be, from noodles with pistou (the Nicois pesto) and deep-fried zucchini blossoms to stewed tripe and beef in red wine sauce, $65-$95. Le Safari, 1 Cours Saleya, tel. 93-80-18-44, the cafe portion out front is a popular hangout for the local citizenry; the warm, comfortable, always-bustling interior serves Nicois specialties, lots of good, simply cooked fish, miscellaneous dishes from other parts of France and great pizza in five or six varieties, with thin, crisp crusts always slightly black around the edges and perfumed with wood smoke, $60-$100 (pizzas, $10).

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What to see and do: Musee Matisse, 164 Avenue des Arenes de Cimiez, tel. 93-53-17-70, open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Sept. 1 to March 31, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. the rest of the year. Free admission. Musee et Site Archeologique, Avenue Monte Croce, tel. 93-81-59-57, open 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. from Oct. 1 to April 30, 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. the rest of the year; closed Sunday mornings and Mondays. Admission free to the museum, 90 cents to the archeological site. Marche aux Puces de Nice, Place Guynemer (Vieux Port), open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and on the first Sunday of every month. The flea market on the Cours Saleya is open every Monday from 9 a.m. to nightfall.

For more information: The French Government Tourist Office, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 303, Beverly Hills 90212, (900) 990-0040 (calls cost 50 cents per minute).