A DISTRICT OF Nice
Le Port
The Lympia basin, dug in the eighteenth century out of a pond, and still the city's only deep-water harbour.
The harbour was opened from 1750 on the site of a pond, at the initiative of the King of Sardinia. It still bears that water's name: Lympia. It is the city's only basin able to take large vessels, and the Corsica ferries still leave from it.
Place Île-de-Beauté and its ochre façades close the basin to the north, around the church of Notre-Dame-du-Port. The ensemble is of a single design, contemporary with the harbour itself, giving the quarter a coherence few others in Nice possess.
The quarter sits at the bottom of a valley between Castle Hill and Mont Boron. That means shelter from the wind, and it also means shorter light in winter: the sun drops behind the heights earlier than on the seafront. It can be checked on a visit, provided one visits at the right hour.
