The Cypresses of the Cimetière du Château

This cemetery exists because the King of Sardinia decided in 1783 that burying the dead inside church chapels was a public health risk, and ordered the practice stopped across his kingdom, which then included Nice. The city chose the ruined citadel grounds on the hill above the old town, terracing the site into the stepped, orderly plots still visible today. When Nice was annexed by France in 1860, the cemetery was enlarged and reorganised, work that involved cutting back or replanting the site's cypress cover along with new paths and retaining walls, so most of the cypresses standing today likely date from that period rather than the cemetery's 1783 founding, though no individual tree has a documented planting record. What survives is a genuinely striking setting: 2,800 graves on terraces overlooking the bay and the port, shaded by cypress trees that give the whole hillside its dark, vertical silhouette from the sea. The cemetery remains free and open to visitors alongside the surrounding Colline du Château park.