About the Area

Nice old town properties are the top choice for many because of the character of the apartments, the history within them and the fact that there is tons of entertainment just by popping your head out of the window to watch the world saunter by! Full of hustle and bustle, atmosphere and Niçois charm, Old Nice apartments (you also hear it called Vieux Nice or La Vieille Ville) abound in a tangle of unpredictable streets with restaurants, cafés and artists’ studios spilling out onto the pavements.

Largely pedestrian, you can wander for hours through the shaded squares and admire the colourful façades, the artisans at work and the myriad street performers in the summertime. The Cours Saleya, the large, open square just next to the sea front is at the heart of the Old Town where restaurant tables jostle with market stalls.

It is here that the famous flower and food market is held of a morning and where the liveliest bars and restaurant terraces team with life at night time. The majority of the houses in the Old Town were built well over 100 years ago and have preserved their picturesque Italianate cachet. Most of the properties you are likely to visit in the old town probably won’t have lifts – although in apartment blocks with wider staircases lifts are now being installed.

Communal areas often reflect the age of the building and aren’t usually very luxurious but they make up for this in charm. Residential prices have gone up a great deal in Vieux Nice in recent years as it very popular place to buy as it is authentic and bursting with character.

If you want the history and authenticity offered by Vieux Nice but less of the tourists, then the Old Town does stretch up to the hill towards the Chateau, and in many of these tiny streets winding uphill away from the heart of the Old Town are quieter parts with apartments set back from the livelier areas which means you can sit back and enjoy your Nicois apartment at a more "zen" pace!

A great place to buy a rental investment as it is many holiday-makers number one choice - well served by transport and the airport bus drops you right off !