Taxi Nice — Sospel

Sospel is a preserved medieval town nestled at the confluence of the Bévéra and Merlanson rivers, in the mountainous hinterland between Nice and the Italian border. Its emblem is the Pont Vieux (13th century), a fortified toll bridge spanning the Bévéra, one of the last of its kind in Europe. The central tower once served to collect tolls and housed a garrison. Rebuilt after the 1944 bombings, it retains its picturesque medieval silhouette. The Cathedral of Saint-Michel, a masterpiece of Nice baroque with its trompe-l'oeil facade, contains a 15th-century altarpiece by François Bréa. Sospel was an important crossroads on the Royal Road linking Nice to Turin, and the village retains traces of this commercial past with its arcades, small squares and colourful-fronted houses along the river. Fort Saint-Roch, a structure of the Alpine Maginot Line built in the 1930s, is open for visits and offers a unique testimony to inter-war military architecture.