Historical guided tour of Old Nice, with discovery of the religious buildings, such as the baroque churches, the Penitents' chapels, the monasteries, and the Lascaris Palace.

This aristocratic residence, a masterpiece of the baroque style in Nice, is home to a Museum dedicated to the art and music of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Palais Lascaris, located in the heart of the old town, is the most remarkable civilian baroque monument in Nice with its monumental staircase, its frescoes and its luxuriously decorated salons. Along with about a dozen religious buildings located nearby, it forms an exceptional group demonstrating the successive phases in the development of baroque architecture from the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century.

The Palais was built in the middle of the 17th century for the Lascaris Vintimille family, one of the leading families of the Nice nobility, considered by Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, as the “principalissima” of the County of Nice. The Palais stayed in the Lascaris-Vintimille family until the Revolutionary period. Put up for sale in 1802, it suffered serious damage. Purchased by the City of Nice in 1942, it was listed as a historic monument in 1946. Refurbishment work began in 1963 and was completed in 1970, the year the Palais was definitively opened to the public as a Municipal Museum.

On the piano nobile (main floor), the appartements d’apparat (reception apartments) invite you to discover their ceilings decorated with frescoes depicting mythological themes and stucco work dating from the late 17th century, along with the permanent collection focusing on the 17th and 18th centuries – paintings and graphic arts, sculptures, furniture and objets d’art, and tapestries from Aubusson and Flanders.

The Palais Lascaris is also home to a remarkable collection of antique musical instruments from the Antoine Gautier estate, the second largest public collection in France after the Musée de la Musique in Paris and one of the largest in Europe. In 2013, the Museum also received a prestigious deposit from the Institut de France – the collection of musical instruments that had belonged to Gisèle Tissier-Grandpierre, the famous harpist and friend of Gabriel Fauré.

We will also introduce you to the traditions of Nice. Small stroll on the Promenade des Anglais and the Place Masséna
To finish, stroll on the Cours Saleya, with its polychrome facades, and discover the fruit and vegetable and flower markets. Then tasting of a ice cream at Fenocchio.