Is this beauty between Monte Carlo and Nice.
One of the first this place is appreciated by Celtic-Ligurian tribes, then the Greeks, the Romans, who, after the conquest of Gaul, is an offshoot of paved the famous Via Aurelia road through the settlement Montolivo. Founding the port, they gave him the name Olivula, the olive tree.
With the fall of the dynasty Carolingian period, the territory belongs to the eastern Lorraine and Provence. Count of Provence, Charles II, Count of Anjou, in the 1295g. ordered the residents to move Montolivo closer to the sea to protect the coastline from pirate attacks. On his orders, the port becomes free, bezposhlinnym, and as such it will be until the nineteenth century.
From 1388 Eastern Provence is a member of the Principality of Savoy (the status of the Kingdom of Savoy will have ownership in 1713 by Utrehskomu treatise, the port was renamed in Villafranca, becomes its main port facilities. And over the next 400 years, remains a subject of dispute between the French and the Holy Roman Empire, whose allies For many centuries, Savoy.
Savoy owned vast territories, from the modern border between Italy and France, coast from Ventmili and to Nice, plus the area from Cuneo to Ventimiglia in the Maritime Alps (with the exception of Tende, Brigue). Were they in the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was part of Savoy. It would seem, where Sardinia, where the Piedmont and Savoy :-)
It is at Savoy is a serious economic development of the port Villafranca. Port that appeals to many, he has a very good geographical position. Even when a storm in the Bay are no high waves, no strong flow, and the ships feel safe here. Emanuele Filiberto
When, founder of the dynasty in the sixteenth century was built shipyards, allowing Savoy to build their own ships which took part in important battles, such as stazhenii with Saracens at Lepanto.
quotes an article from the site Vladlen Sirotkin www.pravda.ru .
BAY Count Orlov
The city Villfransh-sur-Mer keep the memory of Russian sailors, scholars and aristocrats.
Indeed, according to Pushkin, we're lazy and incurious. And here is an intern from the United States Leroy Ellis was not lazy - he defended in 1995 at the University of Aix-en-Provence, PhD and published it in book form in French - "Russian on the Cote d'Azur."
No, this is not the "new Russian" that litter dollars, give unimaginable gratuities to waiters and squander thousands of the casino. These are the Russian, even under Catherine II, concerned about the protection "of warm seas, the Black and Azov, on the distant approaches to it, in the Mediterranean, founded the "Russian Gibraltar" in the deep bay of what was then the Italian Riviera - in town Villfransh-sur-Mer, now a suburb of Nice. And that's it, Catherine admirals Alexei and Fyodor Orlov, the municipality intends to raise Villfransha two busts, which is going to deliver the delegation of the St. Petersburg Maritime Board, headed by a descendant of Count Orlov, Admiral Nikolai Orlov. busts will be installed next to City Hall, the former Genoese fortress, opposite the already-installed the bust of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, mother, widow of Tsar Nicholas I, on the Boulevard her behalf. Why would the French bother about the former "occupiers" from 1856 to 1870 Powers in "Russian Gibraltar" a whole armada of their battleships, built the barracks, military hospital, the road from Villfransha Nice, remodeled the former galley depot in its coal storage? And why the vice-mayor Culture artist Charles Minetti not only consists in the correspondence on this matter with the St. Petersburg Maritime Board and the Ministry of Culture, but also conducts seminars on the history of the Russian presence on the roads Villfransh-sur-Mer. " Yes, because the artist is not narrow-minded nationalist Minetti, for which is the highest good - a fire of enmity between the "occupiers" and the titular nation, Charles - a European, while Russia was and is part of European culture and civilization. Yes, in 1856 Russia, the victim is a crushing defeat in the Crimean War, signed in Paris a humiliating peace (by the way, signed his Another Count Orlov - a diplomat), in which she allowed to have on the Black Sea naval base and a navy (the so-called demilitarization). Military building in Sevastopol have been razed. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris is not forbidden to have a Russian naval base elsewhere in the world - have the same UK if base in Gibraltar, Malta, the Red Sea ... Moreover, until 1860, this part of the Cote d'Azur, from the river Var and to the town of Menton on the current Franco-Italian border (Nice - Villfransh - Principality of Monaco) did not belong to France and the Kingdom of Sardinia, with its capital in Turin. And its king, Victor Emmanuel I was very interested in search of diplomatic allies, for it was in 1856-1860 years was an accelerated process of the unification of Italy "from above" under the leadership of House of Savoy. 's no wonder that the Sardinian diplomats in the course of peace talks in Paris (he was signed on March 30, 1856) readily came into contact with Russian diplomats in order to provide temporary parking Russia Russian ships to refuel their coal. Further talks continued in Turin, and in early autumn of that year, the Russian envoy to the Kingdom of Sardinia Count Stackelberg signed the Russian-Sardinian secret naval convention providing for ten years at a convenient harbor town Villfransh a permanent parking lot of the Russian squadron. So on the Italian Riviera arose "Mediterranean Sevastopol. further into the matter came dynastic diplomacy. October 26, 1856 in Bay Villfransha that local residents dubbed "Gulf Orlov," comes the Sardinian frigate Carlo Alberto. " On board - the Empress Dowager, the mother of Alexander Feodorovna, wife of the deceased in 1855 by Tsar Nicholas I, whose heart could not bear the shameful defeat of Russia in the Crimean War. In the retinue of the Empress-mother are Diplomats, sailors, military engineers. Formally, the illustrious widow arrived "on water" - Crimea broke, do not settle, and the imperial couple to rest on yugah "where something should be. actually visit - legal cover a large Russian military-diplomatic missions, for in Nice, where stood the Empress-mother (Villfranshe in the next, then a small fishing village with four thousand inhabitants, there were no suitable holiday villas illustrious personages), and in Turin immediately began intensive negotiations on the details of the arrangement of "Mediterranean Sevastopol. It was not only to build its own navy facilities in the Bay of eagles "- coal storage, barracks, hospital, artillery batteries at the entrance to the bay (Cape Ferrat, built mansions of millionaires, and today's parlance is called "the Russian battery), but much broader - to build a railroad Villfranshu and even ... about purchasing the principality of Sardinia Monaco, located ten kilometers from the "Bay of eagles" in the direction of Italy. Can you imagine - brilliant Monte Carlo casino - and in the CIS? In short, crashed in the Crimean War Russia, temporarily losing Sevastopol as the main naval base on the Black Sea, was going to revive it in the Mediterranean. All these plans are "rooting" in the Mediterranean, supported by intensive trade. In the "Bay of eagles" in 1858 opened a commercial quay were built grain storage - up to 17 Russian commercial ships per year came into the bay and only at the end of 1856 brought to 155 thousand tons of Russian grain to sell. Conversely, they carried the olive oil and citrus. Already in 1858 the trade turnover "bay heads" has reached unprecedented for Villfransha amount of 450 thousand French francs. parallel with naval and trading activity on the Russian Riviera passed an increase in the Russian colony on the Cote d'Azur. Since Villfransh on three sides by high mountains trapped and had no free-construction sites, reaching for the Empress-mother of Russian aristocrats started buying land in the neighboring "bay heads" Nice. first example gave the Grand Duchess Helen, wife of Nicholas I and his brother Michael and sister-in-law Alexandra Feodorovna. She bought a nice villa with a large plot, erected on the shores of the pool and first gave an example of making sea bathing. In 1857, the empress-mother came back to Nice and this time held here during the autumn and winter. Her initiative and her money was laid, built and consecrated in 1859, the first Russian church in Nice, in the name of St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, still exists today with a Russian library in it. in 1860 as a result of complex military and diplomatic intrigue status Riviera has changed - the Kingdom of Sardinia ceded the province of Savoy, along with Nice and the Principality of Monaco Napoleon III, and the Italian Riviera has become a Cote d'Azur of France. But this does not affect the status of the bay - it remains a "Mediterranean Sevastopol, "Russia and composed of France, in October 1864 confirmed Napoleon III during his meeting with Alexander II in Nice, extending the lease agreement "Bay heads" for another ten years. The king was also a personal reason to come back to Nice. His eldest son and heir to the throne of 20-year-old crown prince Nicholas A. has been ill with tuberculosis and the doctors strongly advised the royal family to send him to the "sea water". Cesarevitch rushed to the sea in November 1864 from Odessa in the bay Orlov. But alas, it was too late - the disease was incurable, and April 22, 1865 heir to the throne died in Nice at the hands of his mother and father, Alexander II, urgently summoned by telegram from St. Petersburg. Later, on-site villas Neyon, the residence of the Empress-mother in Nice, was built a chapel-monument, standing and still in the wall of the largest on the Cote d'Azur St. Nicholas Cathedral on the boulevard Crown Prince, opened in 1912. By 1870 the international situation in Europe again radically changed. Napoleon III suffered a crushing defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and together with the main part of his army was captured by the Prussians. Victor Emmanuel I took the opportunity and completed the unification of Italy "on top" by attaching to his leaving the Papal State and is now only a quarter in Rome - the Vatican. Russia, in turn, unilaterally denounced the Treaty of Paris Peace in 1856 for the demilitarization of the Black Sea and returned to the status of Sevastopol naval base, which was enshrined the London International Protocol 1871 year. need "second Sevastopol" in the Bay City Villfransh disappeared, and the Russian military ships in the harbor have been transferred Crimea. But the Russian property in the Bay of eagles "left: right up until the First World War, the Russian military and civilian ships from time to time came into Villfransh to replenish stocks of coal at the former naval base. The former naval barracks (galley depot) at the end of the XIX century by Professor Alexei Korotnevym was created Russian Oceanographic Laboratory of Marine Zoology, which existed as a Russian scientific institution until 1932. At the station there Oceanography museum, aquarium and a science library, the laboratory had its own wharf, and several hydrographic ships, regularly publishing its annual scientific reports. In fact, it was a major research center in the bay Orlov, "where, for example, in 1907 employed more than 30 Russian and foreign scientists. Center contained Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. After the October Revolution, communication lab home broke down, it existed on donations individual patrons, while in 1932 finally taken over by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (similar to our RAS). After World War II on the basis of Russian laboratories have created a biological station for the practice of students in biology at the Sorbonne, and today over its entrance adorned the inscription: "Laboratory of Marine Biology, University of Paris - 6. A stands with portraits of Russian professors - the founders and employees of the station - Dismantled, and they are gathering dust in the far corner of the building once belonged to the Russian station. Although the light hand of Russian scientists from the laboratory (The latter of whom died in 1969 in Nice) in Villfranshe the end of XIX century, are held regularly oceanographic research seminars and workshops, and more recently mayor's office equipped on its territory in the citadel of a "Hall of Congresses, where the other scientific meetings - in archeology, marine geology, stories, etc. Here are the historical, scientific and cultural shoots at first gave a modest coal storage in the Bay of eagles ".
Vladlen Sirotkin.
Villfransh - Nice - Paris.
get here, you can have a coffee and a croissant in a bar overlooking the sea,
tumble on the beach, stroll through the narrow streets, reminiscent of small towns in Liguria style architecture and bright colors of the buildings,
admire exotic flowers, which is just an incredible amount (and not only in the warm season, cold, and there does not happen, and winter temperatures rarely drops below 10.8 degrees), visit a historic fort in the Villfranshe
and the hill Monte Alban, the famous magnificent park, panorama of the Bay of Nice, and Villfranshe peninsula of Cap Ferrat and the villas of celebrities, to sit in mileyshih restaurants, enjoying the resort atmosphere and pleasing the audience,
look cute trinkets on the antiques market on Sundays (it is held on the square near the Chapel Cocteau).
Villfransh get in the following way:
- by helicopter, private plane, book a taxi from any point Italy, France, Switzerland, and convenient for you to the airport, for example, Nice, Turin, Milan, Genoa, it's coming (for the fans to rest on the fullest possible such an option).
more affordable option:
- bus number 100, which runs along the coast from Monaco to Nice (from the bus station Gare Routiere). Travel costs 1 Euro.
- by train from any train station, Gare SNCF, the station Villefranche-sur-mer.
- a rented car at the offices of
Europcar, Alamo, Hertz
Info for the navigator:
1 quai Courbet
06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer
VILLEFRANCHE SUR MER
Take photos on the road from Nice to Monte Carlo can be of two panoramic points if you go on the road Basse Corniche. Do not see these places is impossible, there will always stop other tourists.
http://italy-france.livejournal.com/2009/11/06/
