A DISTRICT OF Nice
Promenade des Anglais
Seven kilometres of seafront named after those who funded it, not those who built it.
The original path was funded in the 1820s by the British colony wintering in Nice, at the instigation of the Reverend Lewis Way. Locals first called it the Englishmen's path; the name stuck when the promenade was widened, then brought to its present scale along the Baie des Anges.
The Negresco, opened in 1913, holds the middle and serves as everyone's landmark. The buildings along it span a century of architecture, from Belle Époque villa to post-war block, which makes the word « Promenade » insufficient to describe a property: two addresses three hundred metres apart share neither period nor ceiling height.
One point is worth knowing before visiting: the house's fee schedule distinguishes properties on the Promenade des Anglais from the rest of Nice. It is the only place on the territory where that distinction applies, and it is public.
