A DISTRICT OF Nice
Cimiez
The hill the Romans settled before anyone else, and which the Belle Époque rebuilt on top of it.
The Romans founded Cemenelum here, capital of the province of the Maritime Alps. An arena and baths remain, excavated in the middle of the quarter and open to the public. One lives on a hill carrying two thousand years of continuous building — visible less in the architecture than in the line of the streets.
The quarter as it stands dates from the late nineteenth century, built around grand hotels for a wintering clientele. Most were converted into residential buildings, which explains the unusual size of the apartments: hotel volumes, with the ceiling heights that go with them.
The monastery and its gardens hold the top of the hill; Matisse is buried in the adjoining cemetery, and the museum bearing his name occupies a seventeenth-century Genoese villa below. The quarter faces south over the city and the hinterland: more sheltered than the seafront, and without a sea horizon.
