Port de Nice (Lympia)

Port Lympia enjoys a privileged setting in Nice, nestled between the old town (Vieux-Nice) and Mont Boron, facing the Baie des Anges. This marina, located in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur on the Mediterranean coast, spans roughly twenty hectares, including 127,500 square metres of water, at the heart of one of the most recognisable settings on the French Riviera.

With 503 berths, Port Lympia welcomes both pleasure craft and larger yachts, with facilities able to receive sizeable vessels. Its infrastructure includes a lighthouse at the end of the breakwater, the Notre-Dame-du-Port church dedicated to sailors, and the Applevage crane no. 14, dating from 1937 and listed as a historic monument. A nearby tramway stop connects the port to central Nice within minutes and to the airport in about half an hour.

Around the port, the atmosphere blends maritime activity with the relaxed pace of life in Nice. The quaysides border a lively district just steps from Vieux-Nice, with its narrow lanes, markets and coloured facades. The port also retains a small traditional fishing fleet and hosts regular ferry links to Corsica, alongside its strong pleasure boating and tourism role.

The present-day port has its origins in the 18th century: its construction was ordered around 1748 by King Charles-Emmanuel III, ruler of the Kingdom of Sardinia to which Nice then belonged, to give the city a better-protected harbour than the former Ponchettes anchorage. Works, carried out in several stages, stretched over more than a century, with the inner basin completed in 1792 and the quays finished through the 19th century. The name Lympia is thought to derive from a stream that once ran through the marshland where the basin was dug.