Page 59 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SPRING 2025 GRAND VOYAGE

he French Riviera has long been the
playground of the rich and famous,
T from Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald to
Jeff Bezos and Leonardo DiCaprio. But for
us, the Côte d’Azur once conjured memo-
ries of crawling traffic and impossible
parking during a crowded summer visit
years ago. This time, however, we experi-
enced it in the off-season, and it was a
completely different world.
Our ship’s shore excursion took us to
two gems of the Riviera—Nice and Èze.
Nice has been an important city for mil-
lennia. The Greeks founded it in 350 BC,
naming it Nikaia after Nike, the goddess of
victory. Over the centuries, it saw Roman
rule, medieval feuds, and a long tug-of-war
between Italy and France, before finally
becoming part of the French Republic in
the 19th century. Today, Nice is a seamless
blend of French elegance and Mediter-

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