Nice listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its “resort spirit”
On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the city of Nice, capital of the Alpes-Maritimes region, was officially listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area includes the Promenade des Anglais, the United States jetty and the Les Ponchettes terraces. The perimeter also includes Mount Bor, the Cimez and Les Baumettes hills and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
“A historic event” for the people of Nice
In Fuzhou, China, where the 44th edition of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is currently taking place. This weekend, the Cordouan lighthouse in the Gironde estuary, as well as several health centers, including the town of Vichy, were classified by the organization, which each year identifies a collection of cultural and natural properties of exceptional interest to the common heritage of mankind. The city’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, expressed his delight on his Twitter account, stressing that this was “a unique event in our history due to its size and impact”.
Nice’s rich history and ideal location on the Côte d’Azur
between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. It is known the world over for its magnificent buildings and landscapes. The city also enjoys a rich history characterized by its changing sovereignty and its late passage into the French zone at the end of the 19th century. Until the dawn of the 19th century, Nice was an old town of the Kingdom of Sardinia Piedmont, surrounded by a hill with a destroyed castle and the River Paillon. Scottish writer Tobias Smollett’s travelogues, published around 1766, made them fashionable and captivated English audiences in particular. “In Nice, at the end of the 18th century, a new form of urban planning emerged for the winter resort, then in a second phase for summer tourism. A new cosmopolitan city was founded in an exceptional location between sea and mountains, whose development was determined by the function of a complex between 1760 and 1960,” said French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian and Minister of Culture Franck Riester in a statement sent by AFP in January 2020.
The prefecture of Alpes-Maritimes includes this restricted classification, which does not give entitlement to any specific funding, in the title of “Riviera winter resort town”. “Nice claims to have invented the Riviera concept. Today, it is recognized by Unesco as the expression of a major social phenomenon: the emergence of a purely hedonistic activity, aimed at well-being and happiness, which we call tourism and which at the time was called ‘villégiature’”, explains former culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who since 2014 has chaired the Nice world heritage mission at the request of mayor Christian Estrosi.
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