The Belle Époque façade
1897 domes and ornament, among the Riviera's finest survivors.
mwanasimba — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain · Qdelcamp — CC BY-SA 3.0 · GFreihalter — CC BY-SA 4.0
Cimiez is the aristocratic hill quarter, and it makes a half-day: the **Matisse Museum** in a red seventeenth-century villa, the **Cimiez monastery** with its garden, view and cemetery where Matisse and Dufy are buried, the **Roman ruins** (amphitheatre and baths of the town of Cemenelum), and the **Régina** façade from outside. Take a bus up from the centre, then walk between them.
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The Excelsior Régina is a vast white edifice on the **Cimiez** hill above Nice, and one of the clearest witnesses to the era that made the city: built in **1897** as a luxury hotel specifically to receive **Queen Victoria**, who spent the winters of her last years there with a retinue of dozens — her suite occupied the entire west wing. Its long façade with domes and ornament is among the finest surviving **Belle Époque** architecture on the Riviera. After the First World War aristocratic tourism collapsed, the hotel closed, and in 1934 it was converted into **private apartments**. In one of those apartments the painter **Henri Matisse** lived from 1938 until his death in 1954, making some of his most famous late work there. ⚠ **The building today is private housing and cannot be visited inside at all** — it is seen and photographed from outside only, and it stands steps from the Matisse Museum and the Cimiez monastery.
1897 domes and ornament, among the Riviera's finest survivors.
The entire west wing was Victoria's and her retinue's.
71 Avenue Régina, 06000 Nice (Cimiez)