Taxi Nice — Tourrettes-sur-Loup

Tourrettes-sur-Loup is one of the most captivating villages in the Nice hinterland, a fortified medieval town perched on a rocky promontory above the spectacular Loup Gorges. Nicknamed the 'City of Violets' as it is the last stronghold of open-field violet cultivation on the Côte d'Azur, Tourrettes celebrates the Violet Festival each March, a tradition dating back to the 19th century. The terraced violet fields on the village slopes offer an enchanting sight and fragrance from November to March. Beyond violets, Tourrettes-sur-Loup has become a centre for art craftsmanship: potters, weavers, sculptors, painters and jewellers have set up workshops in the medieval houses, creating a unique artistic trail through the stone lanes. The village itself is an architectural curiosity: the outer houses, built directly on the rock, form a continuous wall — there are no separate ramparts as the dwellings themselves serve as fortification. The Church of Saint-Grégoire houses an altarpiece from the Nice School and a 15th-century triptych attributed to the workshop of Louis Bréa. The Loup Gorges, accessible from the village, offer a vertiginous walk between waterfalls and limestone cliffs. The journey from Nice first crosses the Var plain before climbing towards Vence and the hinterland hills.