travelling-blogger

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My wife and I have been to Nice every summer for the last five years.

Why? Because it's like being on a cruis.

Everything is right on your doorstep, especially the sparkling sea.

Anyone who climbs to the park on a hill called the Colline du Chateau, at the east end of town, will see what I mean. From here you can watch the planes - far enough out to sea to be inaudible - as they approach the airport at the west tip of the bay on which Nice stands.

Not exactly like Blackpool: Nice has long been a seafront favourite with British travellers

Arriving passengers can board a bus that leaves from outside the terminal and skirts the sea for 20 minutes, then you're in the middle of the bay, where most of the hotels are located.

This is the Promenade des Anglais, named after the Britons who launched Nice as a holiday resort - albeit a winter one - 200 years ago. You still hear a lot of English voices, and the Niçoise French are not as intimidatingly chic as the Parisians: they tend to be overripe ladies with small fluffy dogs in tow.

They get through a lot of the staple Niçoise drink - rosé - while basking at the seafront cafes.

The city, with its sparkling sea and hinterland of slumberous villas, is more beautiful than any British resort, but it is bracingly reminiscent of some of the more rackety ones.

The stony beach - the penance you pay for entering the turquoise sea - reminds me of Brighton. The palm trees along the centre of the prom are fairy-lit at night, like a more tasteful Blackpool.

The manager of the most select hotel, Le Negresco, would be appalled to learn that its Belle Époque architecture reminds me of the Grand Hotel, Scarborough. The Grand is no longer grand but Le Negresco keeps its end up: a glass of wine in its stately bar costs around £25.

So we don't stay there, but at the Hyatt Regency Palais de la Méditerranée, a couple of blocks along.

The original Palais, built in 1930, was a general house of fun, with a restaurant, casino and theatre. By the year 2000, it had fallen into decay and was rebuilt as a hotel, although the lovely art-deco façade is preserved.

The Palais is not extortionate - no tip-hungry porter is thrust upon you at check-in - but it is still glamorous, like Nice itself. With all due respect to Blackpool and Scarborough, you wouldn't catch Bono, Elton John, Sean Connery or Bill Gates living there, as they do in Nice.

The city stars in many films featuring beautiful people involved in shady business, including The Jewel Of The Nile (Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas), Ronin (Robert de Niro and Natascha McElhone) and The Day Of The Jackal (the jackal, played by Edward Fox, naturally stays at Le Negresco).

But Nice is one of the less expensive jewels on the Côte d'Azur.

Big screen: Films such as The Day Of The Jackal (left) and The Jewel Of The Nile have used Nice as a backdrop

It does not exist solely to exploit tourists. The streets inland of the front are full of the French being French: smoking in café terraces; discussing their ailments in the numerous pharmacies. When my wife Lisa and I ask the way to the Museum of Modern Art, nobody knows.

Perhaps it is the profusion of museums and galleries that causes the confusion. Nice has more than any French city except Paris. Many are run by the municipality, and these are free.

We like the ones close to the prom - partly, I admit, because we can't be bothered to walk far in the heat. The Musée Masséna, a blessedly cool 19th-century mansion featuring many paintings of old Nice, is right on the prom, at No. 35.

Five minutes inland, at 33  Avenue des Baumettes, is the Musée des Beaux-Arts, formerly the residence of a Ukranian princess. It is full of paintings even I can appreciate (thank goodness for Post-Impressionism). There never seems to be more than half a dozen visitors, so I pad around the elegant rooms pretending it's my house.

At the westward base of the Colline is the Old Town, with its medieval alleyways, baroque churches and the most interesting shops, including Maison Auer, at 7 rue Saint-Francoise de Paule, which is unchanged since 1820, and sells glacé fruits.

Lisa likes the antique/bric-a-brac market held in the main square of the Old Town, the Cours Saleya, every Monday. My role is to follow her about carrying the linen napkins she buys in bulk.

The square is lined with restaurants serving good Italian and Niçoise food.

Our favourite is La Favola, where you dine on a terrace under Art Nouveau street lamps. Seafood and pasta are the specialities, and everything is on a huge scale. Plates are 2ft across; the olive oil comes in a sort of petrol can.

At night, the green hill of the Colline - atmospherically illuminated - soars above the old town like a vision of heaven. Immediately east of the hill lies the small harbour, where the yachts of the billionaires look somehow less brash than those in Monaco, 12 miles along the coast.

I always visit Monaco when in Nice, mainly for the scenic train ride, which costs around £6 for a return ticket. In Monaco, an entry-level property costs £5 million, whereas in Nice, you can buy a two-bedroom flat with sea view for a twentieth of that - my retirement dream.