Above all, one should see Nice in the height of the flower season, when the stalls of the flower merchants are literally buried under a harvest of flowers and perfumed fruits.
Nice’s distractions are too numerous to be mentioned in detail. The Mi-Carême and Mardi Gras festivals are nowhere on the Riviera more brilliant than here, and now that in these progressive days they have added “Batailles de Fleurs” and “Courses d’Automobiles,” and “Horse-Races” and “Tennis” and “Golf Tournaments,” the significance of the merry-making is quite different from the original interpretation given it by the Latins. Sooner or later “Baseball” and “Shoe-blacking Contests” may be expected to be introduced, and then what will be one’s recollections of “Nizza la Bella?”
The business of Nice consists almost entirely of the catering to her almost inexhaustible stream of winter visitors. This, and the traffic in garden vegetables and fruits, a trade of some proportions in olive-oil, and the manufacture and sale of crystallized fruit, make up the chief industrial life of the town.
One other industry may be mentioned, though it is of little real worth, in spite of the business having reached large figures,—the trade in olive-wood souvenirs. Every one knows the sort of thing: penholders, napkin-rings, and card-cases. They are found at resorts all over the world, and the manufacturers of Nice have spread their product, throughout Europe, before the eyes of the tourists who like to buy such “souvenirs,” whether they are at Brighton, Mont St. Michel, or Vichy.
The region between Nice and Menton seems particularly favourable to the growth of a much grander species of olive-tree than is to be seen in the other départements of the south, and the olive-oil of Nice, because of its peculiar perfume, is greatly in demand among those who think they have an exquisite taste in this sort of thing. As most of this aromatic oil is exported, the statement need be no reflection on the product of other parts. One hundred establishments, of all ranks, are engaged in this traffic at Nice.
The horticultural trade plays its part, and the roses and violets of Nice are found throughout the flower-markets of Europe. There are three great rose-growing centres in western Europe, Lyons, Paris, and Ghent (Belgium), and mostly their flowers are grown from plants obtained at Nice.
The cut-flower traffic is also considerable locally, and Nice, Beaulieu, Monaco, and Monte Carlo are themselves large consumers.
Four kilometres only separate Nice from Cimiez, the latter comparatively as flourishing and important a town in the days of the Romans as Nice is to-day.
