The Cours Saleya, flowers, fruit and socca on the old town promenade.

What it is

The Cours Saleya is a long, narrow promenade between the streets of Vieux Nice and the row of low buildings that separates it from the sea. Every morning from Tuesday to Sunday it fills with striped awnings: it is Nice's flower market, where the Niçois have been buying since 1861. There are bouquets, plants, cut flowers and growers who explain how to care for what you take away. Around the flowers are the stalls of local fruit and vegetables, olives, spices, soaps and sweets, and some crafts. The tourist office points out that the Conseil National des Arts Culinaires classifies it among France's exceptional markets.

Monday changes completely: there are no flowers, and the same promenade fills with antique and second-hand stalls. If you are interested in crockery, frames or old posters, that is your day.

What to do and what to try

Go early, when the stalls have just been set up and the promenade still belongs to the locals. Walk the whole length, from one end to the other, before buying anything. For breakfast, in the surrounding streets they sell socca, the thin chickpea-flour pancake eaten hot and with pepper, and pissaladière, with onion and anchovy. The terraces on the Cours Saleya itself serve coffee from first thing.

On the same square is the Chapelle de la Miséricorde, and at the far end, the yellow building where Henri Matisse lived between 1921 and 1938, on the place Charles-Félix.

Getting there

On foot from anywhere in the centre. Tram 1 has a stop at Cathédrale – Vieille Ville, five minutes away. From the Promenade des Anglais, cross by any of the passages through the low buildings on the sea side. If you go by car, there are underground car parks beneath the Cours Saleya itself and in the Palais de Justice area, but the centre is slow and expensive: better by tram or on foot.