Villefranche-sur-Mer
Villefranche-sur-Mer | ||
---|---|---|
|
||
region | Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur | |
Department | Alpes-Maritimes | |
Arrondissement | Nice | |
Canton | Beausoleil | |
Community association | Nice Cote d'Azur | |
Coordinates | 43 ° 42 ′ N , 7 ° 19 ′ E | |
height | 0-575 m | |
surface | 4.88 km 2 | |
Residents | 5,091 (January 1, 2017) | |
Population density | 1,043 inhabitants / km 2 | |
Post Code | 06230 | |
INSEE code | 06159 | |
Website | www.villefranche-sur-mer.fr | |
Port and old town |
Villefranche-sur-Mer ( Nissart Vilafranca de Mar , Italian Villafranca ) is a French commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region with 5091 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017). It is a member of the Nice Côte d'Azur metropolis .
geography
Villefranche-sur-Mer is located on the Mediterranean Sea , six kilometers east of Nice and ten kilometers west of Monaco .
history
The stretch of coast was already settled by the Ligurians . In ancient times it served the Greeks and Romans as a port and was accessed by a junction from the Via Aurelia . The port's name at the time was Olivula Portus .
In the Middle Ages the place belonged to the Lotharii Regnum . Due to repeated raids, the residents withdrew to the mountainous hinterland, where they founded a new settlement called Montolvio . In 1295, Charles II , ruler of Provence from the House of Anjou , encouraged its residents to return to the coast because he considered the strategic use of a port on the border of his territory to be important and granted them tax exemption in return . The new settlement was therefore called Villa Franca . From 1388 the area belonged to the county of Savoy (from 1416 duchy). Between 1720 and 1820 it was occupied by France several times before it finally became part of the French state together with the county of Nice in 1860 .
The bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer was home after the Second World War until 1962, the Sixth Fleet of the United States . Today Villefranche is the largest cruise port in France. Until 1988 the place was called Villefranche-sur-Mer only Villefranche.
Population development
year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2016 |
Residents | 5953 | 6790 | 7200 | 7363 | 8080 | 6833 | 6649 | 5098 |
Sources: Cassini and INSEE |
Attractions
See also: List of Monuments historiques in Villefranche-sur-Mer
- Citadel with museum: sculptures by the sculptor Antoniucci Volti , collection and pictures by the artist couple Christine Boumeester and Henri Goetz
- Chapel of St. Pierre: the interior was painted in 1957 by Jean Cocteau ; is at the port
- Rue Obscure: a street completely built over with houses; The access to Rue Obscure is to the left of the restaurant L'Oursin bleu from the harbor promenade
- Villa Leopolda , 2700 square meter celebrity villa in the style of the Belle Époque
- Port: Villefranche is now the largest cruise port in the country
- Observatoire Océanologique , formerly also called Station Zoologique or Station Marine , today these are parts of the Observatoire
Town twinning
Sister cities of Villefranche are:
- Bordighera , in Liguria (Italy), since 1956
- Nieuwpoort in Flanders (Belgium), since 1959
- Reiskirchen in Hessen (Germany), since 1975
- Villafranca d'Asti in Piedmont (Italy), since 1979
- Plan-les-Ouates in the canton of Geneva (Switzerland), since 1983
Personalities
- Léon Rossi (1923–2007), French football player and coach
- Yves Giraud (1937–2008), French Romance studies and literary scholar
- Michel Ocelot (* 1943), French animator
Trivia
Most of the songs for the album Exile on Main St. by the rock band Rolling Stones were written in the basement of the Wilhelminian style villa “Villa Nellcôte” in Villefranche, 10 Avenue Louise Bordes .
The 1957 film The Great Love of My Life, starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant , was partly shot in Villefranche.
Bay of Villefranche photographed from Cap Ferrat .
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes des Alpes-Maritimes . Flohic Editions, Volume 2, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-84234-071-X , pp. 1039-1055.
Web links
- Website of the municipality of Villefranche-sur-Mer (French)
- Villefranche-sur-Mer Tourist Office website (multilingual)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst Hofacker: 1967. When pop changed our world forever . Reclam, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-15-011086-7 , pp. 112 .