Nice is often imagined as a summer city: blue chairs, bright terraces, crowded beaches and long Mediterranean days. But before it became a summer fantasy, Nice was one of Europe’s great winter escapes. From the 18th and 19th centuries onward, aristocrats, British families, Russian nobles, artists and travellers came here to escape the cold, drawn by the softness of the climate, the sea air and the particular light of the Riviera. They did not simply pass through the city; they helped shape it. The Promenade des Anglais, the palaces of Cimiez, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the Belle Époque villas and the elegant façades still carry traces of that winter dream.

Yet this cosmopolitan Riviera was built on older foundations. Before Nice became French in 1860, it had long belonged to the world of Savoy, Piedmont and the Kingdom of Sardinia, and that Mediterranean, Italianate layer still runs through the city. It appears in the ochre façades of Vieux Nice, the narrow streets, the painted shutters, the piazza-like squares and the warm rhythm of daily life spilling outdoors. This is what makes Nice so visually fascinating: it is not one identity, but several superimposed on each other. An old Mediterranean city, an Italian-inflected town, a winter refuge for Europe’s elite, and later the sunlit Riviera icon we know today.

This edition of Through the Lens looks at Nice through that layered history. Not as a literal winter postcard, but as a visual story of what remains: sea views, palaces, façades, promenades, old streets, soft light and quiet grandeur. Some images may feel summery, others architectural or intimate, but together they trace the same idea: Nice was shaped by the art of escaping winter, and by the many cultures that came to find warmth here.