This large, bustling city has a magnificent setting, below the mountains and built upon a gently curving bay, which is always an awesome sight when flying in. Nice is the fifth largest city in France, with a population of almost 350,000 inhabitants and the country’s second busiest airport. About 400,000 years ago, prehistoric man set up an elaborate camp here at the foot of Mont Boron, at the site known as Terra Amata, not far from where Sir Elton John’s hilltop mansion now sprawls. In the 4th century BC, Phoenicians from Marseilles sailed into the harbour and founded a trading post around another a prominent hill, now the Colline du Chateau, and named their city Nikea (derived from Nike, goddess of victory). The Romans arrived in 100 BC and built an entire no-expenses-spared city on a third hill which they called Cemeneleum, today’s Cimiez. Cimiez’s prime location made it an obvious target in the Dark Ages for invading Saracens and barbarians, who left it in ruins.

It was to take many centuries and a bunch of British aristocrats escaping from the English winter before it regained its exclusive status. So fond were these Brits of the place that they raised a subscription in 1822 for the building of the seafront esplanade, which is stilled called the Promenade des Anglais in their honour.

By the time Queen Victoria visited later that century, the Cimiez district, filled with luxury villas, was the place to stay.

Calling itself the 'gateway to southern Europe’, Nice has one eye on the future, but is still deeply attached to its traditions of sunny hospitality and laid-back living.