Saint-Roch

Saint-Roch was a plain of orange groves and kitchen gardens along the Paillon before the railway and the gasworks turned it, at the turn of the 20th century, into a working-class quarter. Its boulevard, cut through in 1936 at thirty metres wide and planted with plane trees, remains the widest in Nice. The neighbourhood was heavily bombed in May 1944 and then rebuilt: the buildings mix 1950s-70s blocks, a handful of older low-rise buildings, and recent developments around the tramway.

This is the part of eastern Nice that has changed most since Line 1 arrived: Saint-Roch and Vauban stops, the university at Saint-Jean-d'Angély, the green walkway, and the municipal pool and stadium. It remains a working-class, lively quarter, with a real boulevard life and prices that stay, by some distance, the most accessible ten minutes by tram from the centre.