The County of Nice as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

The Chapel of Bon-Voyage had been left in neglect for a few years but was restored under the responsibility of the Federation of Associations of the County of Nice. This happened in January 2006. Today, the Chapel has been rehabilitated. This work of restoring and safeguarding buildings steeped in the history of the County of Nice has become the goal of the F.A.C.N and its president Jean-Marc Giaume, who leads 6,000 members. “It was important to save these places. We are the carriers of memories and riches of our heritage,” explains Jean-Marc Giaume. The Federation has already helped to save the Old Bridge in Old Nice and aims to refurbish the Ca (House in Tendasque dialect) located at Col de Tende, which allowed those traveling the hard and harsh royal way to find necessary rest. It was the destination to reach for travelers who faced and braved the steep slopes and mountainous weather conditions.

Just like the Ca, the Chapel Notre Dame de Bon Voyage is part of the memory of the County of Nice. It was the last place where travelers would gather before embarking on their perilous journey to Turin, the capital of the States of Savoy, of which the County of Nice was part. The princes of Savoy and the governors of Nice would often gather there. Built in 1727 in its current form, it marked the last limit of the territory of Nice, where the powers of the consuls of Nice ended. It symbolized the beginning of the Royal Road connecting Nice to Turin. Its name is explained by the fact that it represented the start of the journey.

And the journey for the rehabilitation of the entire Niçoise culture by the F.A.C.N has only just begun. It started in 1996 and achieved its first major victory in 1999 with the creation of the first department of Regional Languages and Cultures at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and in 2000 with the recognition by the Ministry of Culture of Nissart as a Regional Language of France. Jean-Marc Giaume, a few weeks ago, in his office, and as often, started surfing the web merely out of curiosity and a desire to enrich his culture.

He stumbled somewhat by chance upon the site of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. He talks about that moment with emotion: “I found my Grail for the County of Nice.” He read the criteria one by one. He could hardly believe it: the Royal Road, which Thomas Jefferson, future president of the United States of America, in 1787 described as “the most remarkable work of ancient and modern times”, corresponds to six classification criteria. (https://whc.unesco.org/fr/criteres/ ) He also noticed that no site is classified in the extreme southeast of France. He organized a meeting to present “his grail” to all the associations that make up the F.A.C.N, which approved and will accompany this project assisted by researchers, historians, conservators, archaeologists, and scholars of the County.

The aim is to give our County an international stature by having the Royal Road recognized, built in 1610, and which symbolized for three centuries and 230 kilometers the homogeneity of a territory with Turin as its capital and Nice as its port. “It will generate jobs, tourism. Obviously, it is an important economic, cultural, tourist, and human stake,” specifies Jean-Marc Giaume, extremely motivated by this new fight, the most important. It will allow for perpetuating for eternity the richness of the Niçard cultural heritage.