Where to buy in Nice, sunny capital of Cote d'Azur

FRANCE:The market in Nice has slowed down - so now may be a good time to look for one of the apartments there with sea views and sunny terraces

NICE, CAPITAL of the French Riviera, is one of few places in the world to have its airport in the city itself. If you're travelling light, you could walk into town along the Promenade des Anglais which curves round the Baie des Anges. The bus (€4) will ensure you're opening the chilled rosé du Var even sooner.

The market has slowed and now may well be a good time to buy. Prospective foreign purchasers start off looking for sunny terraces and sea views, says Fabrice Abissira at nice-apartments.fr.

You can't get much nearer the sea than the Promenade itself but prices are, unsurprisingly, high. And remember, lovely as it is with its palm trees and colourful flowers and plants against the backdrop of an azure sea, the Promenade des Anglais is a six-lane highway.

That said, Abissira, who reports continued interest from Irish buyers, is selling a couple of sunny two-bedroom Promenade apartments at Magnan and Lenval.

The first - 60sq m (646sq ft) - is on the sixth floor of a seven-floor modern building. There is a 9sq m (97sq ft) wide terrace, double glazing and the original parquet flooring. The price is €515,000.

The larger second apartment, on the sixth and top floor, is priced at €680,000.

If a view of la grande Bleue is not essential - and once you're here, you'll either be in it or looking at it while you lunch on whole sea bass at one of the beach restaurants - try streets running parallel and perpendicular to the sea in what estate agents here call the Carré d'Or.

You'll get more square metres for your euros: €740,000 will buy you a four/five-room top floor, corner apartment - 113sq m (1,216sq ft), complete with marble fireplace and balcony in one of those gorgeous bourgeois buildings that make Nice so special (Nice Properties).

Hillsides covered in scented thyme and rosemary when my grandfather wintered here in the 1950s are now covered in modern apartment buildings with concierge, landscaped gardens, pools, sunny terraces, a welcome breeze in the August dog days and views over the Mediterranean. For €650,000, you can buy a two-bedroom first floor apartment in a quiet, small, recent building with pool in La Lanterne (west Nice). The apartment is 100sq m (1,076sq ft), the terrace 54sq m (581sq ft).

To avoid summer in the city, the aunt used to repair to her sixth floor, one-bedroom corner apartment in a nearby hillside building, off the boulevard Napoléon III.

Her L-shaped terrace provided an extra room where she worked, lunched and dined, overlooking the beautifully maintained gardens full of vivid plants and shrubs, with the bay beyond.

Nice is a colourful city in more ways than one. Jean Médecin, then son Jacques, ran the city for 60-odd years. And some years were odder than others. In 1990, Médecin fils flew off on a business trip to Japan and, well, never came back. The family home was in Gairaut.

Properties in this hillside area, north of the motorway, are much sought after (as indeed was Jacques, who was extradited from Uruguay four years later to face various charges).

Nice-apartments.fr is marketing a second and top floor 54sq m (581sq ft) apartment (requiring modernisation), with garden and sea views in a splendid 1925 grand bourgeois château at €304,000.

For €425,000, you can be the proud owner of a 95sq m (1,022sq ft) terrace with city and sea views (and three rooms attached). Alexandre Artiaco at Ordimmo is the agent.

If you plan to live here permanently, it makes sense to buy on the hillside - away from the city centre - where you can get some air during hot, humid summers. But you'll need a car. Agents confirm that many foreign purchasers, often buying to rent, prefer to be within walking distance of the beaches and city centre activity.

Trains, together with a flat fare of €1 per journey throughout the Alpes-Maritimes on buses and the tram, means getting around without a car is simple.

The Menton bus, which travels along one of the loveliest coastal roads anywhere - the Basse Corniche - stops at the port in Nice in the Place de l'Ile de Beauté (synonym for Corsica).

I like the port. It is an open sunny space surrounded by attractive red and yellow ochre bourgeois buildings, lively bistros, Les Puces de Nice (flea market).

The old town, with its vibrant Cours Saleya food and flower market, is nearby. A sunny one-bedroom apartment on the eastern side of the port with town and mountain views is on the market at €425,000 with family agency Miramar Immobilier.

Walk up and around the corner to the boulevard Franck Pilatte - quiet, a short stroll to the old town and right on the water with a coastal path.

There are three small naturally created beaches or you sunbathe on the rocks. La Réserve, neglected for decades, has been renovated by a young Finnish chef. Further on, fish is the thing at Nice landmark, Coco Beach. Both have spectacular views.

"Prices per sq m range from €5,000 to €12,000 per sq m for a top floor apartment with large sunny terrace and sea views," says Miramar's Félicette Tordo.

Last year, they sold an 80sq m (861sq ft) ground floor apartment on the Mont Boron hill for €480,000; a similar sized two-bedroom apartment on Franck Pilatte went for around €600,000. Both were Irish buyers. This may be one of Nice's best kept property secrets - but you can't keep a secret for long.

AGENCIES

www.nice-apartments.fr

www.miramarimmo.com

www.nice-properties.fr

www.ordimmo.fr