The Château Grimaldi at Cagnes-sur-Mer in the département of Alpes-Maritimes, in France, is built on the site of an earlier fortress occupied by the Greeks and then the Romans. The present castle was built in 1309 by Rainier Grimaldi (Lord of Cagnes and an admiral of France) - a distant ancestor of the present ruling house of Monaco. Later it became the residence of the Governors of the province. Following the French Revolution, it was used as barracks and later as a hospital. Now owned by the city of Cagnes, it is known as le Château Musée Grimaldi (the Grimaldi Castle and Museum).
Built upon a hilltop, the castle towers over the town. Constructed in the local stone, it retains many of its original medieval features and motifs, it is machicolated with crenelations surmounting its towers and keep. The castle is built around a triangular courtyard. During the reign of Louis XIII (1610 to 1643) the castle was altered, and the principal rooms made more comfortable and redecorated in the contemporary taste. The great hall has a painted ceiling depicting the Fall of Phaëton, completed in the 1620s by the Genovese painter Giulio Benso (though sometimes attributed to Giovanni Battista Carlone), while the chapel has a ceiling painted with folk scenes.
Today the castle is an exhibition centre for contemporary art from around the world, and a museum of modern art.

Château Grimaldi

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Château de Crémat is a castle built in Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes department in 1906. It is a vineyard that also owned a vineyard and a reception area.The history of the Castle Crémat dates back to the Roman Empire at that time a legion settled on the place called "Li Plana di Mari" which was used for the cultivation of olive trees and vines. Later, in 1906, Antoine Mari, wine merchant, built the castle on the underground galleries of "Li Plana di Mari" used in Roman times for the oil and wine, they become the castle cellars. He revived the vineyard belletan after the devastation caused by phylloxera. In 1923 the estate was acquired by an American millionaire, a shareholder of a large American company Railway: Irène Bretz. The latter undertook development works under the direction of Dalmas architectural firm, who worked in the construction of large hotels of the Belle Epoque with the Carlton in Cannes. These changes, both internal and external, do not affect the general appearance of the castle preserved its proud dungeon. Ms. Bretz, owner of the legendary Negresco, in Nice received everything the French Riviera had celebrity and one of the assiduous hosts of these sumptuous evening was none other than Coco Chanel whose style dominated fashion; the record reveals that it would be inspired by the original castle Crémat, the two intertwined C, to create the acronym of its prestigious fashion house.In 1941, Pierre Thomé, the castle owner and president of the Union of winemakers obtained the AOC for wine of Bellet. In 1980 Charles Bagnis buys Crémat. The vineyards and the wine of Bellet in general are at their peak. Unfortunately it will separate from the castle in the mid-1990s. After passing into the hands of Pierre Thomé, president of the Union of winemakers and Bagnis family after World War II, the area becomes somewhat neglected in 1995, the property of an advertising Nice, Jean-Pierre Pisoni; intended to accommodate seminars, meetings, congresses and prestigious receptions since the castle is the subject of a luxurious renovation. While perpetuating the famous wine place Pisoni M maintains the motto of the house "we do not want to be the biggest, we want to be the best" In 2001 it is a wine of Bellet lovers who bought the castle: the Dutchman Cornelis Kamerbeek. His goal: find the historical area of ​​25 ha. For now, this program is realized with the expansion and modernization of cellars, installing new sales and tasting rooms and a special attention to the vineyard.
http://www.frenchchateau.net/chateaux-of-provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/chateau-de-cremat.html

Château de Crémat

The Musée Picasso, formerly the Château Grimaldi at Antibes, is built upon the foundations of the ancient Greek town of Antipolis. Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France, on the Mediterranean Sea.
History
In 1608 it became a stronghold of the Grimaldi family and has borne their name ever since. In 1702 it became the town hall of Antibes.
From 1925 the chateau was known as the Grimaldi Museum. In 1946 it was the home for six months of the artist Pablo Picasso. Today the museum is known as the Picasso Museum, the first museum in the world to be dedicated to the artist.
Picasso himself donated works to the museum, most notably his paintings The Goat and La Joie de Vivre. In 1990 Jacqueline Picasso bequeathed many works by Picasso to the museum. These included 4 paintings, 10 drawings, 2 ceramics and 6 etchings. These are displayed at the Château in addition to the 3 works on paper, 60 etchings and 6 carpets by Pablo Picasso which the museum collected between 1952 and 2001. Today the collection totals 245 works by Picasso.

Musée Picasso (Antibes)

Fort Carré, often Fort Carré d'Antibes, is a 16th-century star-shaped fort of four arrow-head shaped bastions, that stands on the outskirts of Antibes, France. Henri de Mandon built the fort and then during the 17th century, the Marquis de Vauban redeveloped it.
History
The Romans probably built the first fortifications at Antibes. In 1553, a tower called la tour Saint-Florent was built around a preexisting chapel. Henry III had four bastions added in 1565, whereupon it became Fort Carré (the squared fort).
In the 1680s, Vauban strengthened Fort Carré, adding traverses to protect against ricochet fire and exchanging the stone parapets, which were liable to scatter deadly splinters when hit by shot, for brick ones. Vauban also enlarged the embrasures and added outer walls to the fortification.
Later, the fort's design was modified to take eighteen cannon. The entrance to the fort is through a triangular work that protrudes from the walls, and which is loopholed and pierced by a heavy wooden door. From here, there is a narrow bridge that leads into the fort itself via the flank of one of the arrow-headed bastions. Inside, there are barrack buildings for officers and men as well as the ancient chapel, which has been preserved through the successive stages of military development of the site.
In addition to improving the defences of Fort Carré, Vauban fortified Antibes itself, adding a land front of four arrow-headed bastions around the town, as well as seaward fortifications, including a bastion on the breakwater closing the harbor.
During the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte was briefly imprisoned here. In July 1794, after the violent overthrow of Robespierre, General Bonaparte was detained as a Jacobin sympathizer and held in Fort Carré for ten days. His friend and political ally, Antoine Christophe Saliceti, secured his release.
Then in 1860, the fort played an important role when France annexed Nice.

Fort Carré

The Palais Lascaris is a seventeenth-century aristocratic building in Nice, France. Currently, it is a musical instrument museum. Located in the old town of Nice, it houses a collection of over 500 instruments, which makes it France’s second most important collection.
History
Built in the first half of the seventeenth century and altered in the eighteenth century, the palace was owned by the Vintimille-Lascaris family until 1802. In 1942, it was bought by the city of Nice to create a museum. The restorations began in 1962 and were completed in 1970, when the museum was opened to the public. In 2001, the historical musical instrument collections of the city of Nice were transferred from the Musée Masséna to the Palais Lascaris with the project of transforming it into a music museum. In 2011, the permanent exhibition of musical instruments was finally opened to the public.
Current use
Today the palace devotes its exhibition space to the permanent exhibit of the collection of historical musical instruments, built around the bequest of Antoine Gautier (1825-1904).
Collection
The bequest of the collection of Antoine Gautier
The historical musical instrument collection is formed around the bequest of the nineteenth-century niçois collector Antoine Gautier (1904).
Antoine Gautier was born in Nice in 1825, son of Joseph Octave Gautier, rich wood merchant, and Félicité Rossetti, daughter of the préfet Rossetti and granddaughter of the senator Rossetti Following studies in classics at the Jesuit College (today the lycée Masséna), he became a jurist. An amateur musician, Antoine Gautier played the violin and the viola, and at the age of eighteen founded a quartet with his brother Raymond, in which Antoine played the viola. At that time he began to hold a musical salon and also began collecting instruments in his home on the rue Papacino :
Rue Papacino, we were in the Temple. Everything called for solemn consideration, the large library where the carefully bound and arranged collections were preserved alongside rare editions; the display cases [exhibiting] the gongs, hawaiien guitars, marine trumpets, archlutes, quintons, oboes d'amore, instruments by Maggini or Guarnieri, the four large oak music desks and the imposing Pleyel piano, elicited the visitors' admiration.
Many famous musicians visited his salon, including Jacques Thibaud and Eugène Ysaÿe ; during one soirée in January 1902, Gabriel Fauré performed several of his compositions for piano. In 1903, the Gautier Quartet celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. The following year, Antoine Gautier died at his home, at the age of seventy-nine, leaving to the city of Nice his musical collections consisting of more than 225 instruments and a rare musical library.
The Gautier collection was bequeathed to the city of Nice in the testament of 26 May 1901 and by a codicil dated 8 June 1901. It was accepted by the city of Nice in a special session of the city council, on 19 September 1904. The article of the testament that treats the bequest is succinct :
Wanting to encourage the creation in Nice, the city of my birth, of a well-organised institution of musical education, I leave to the city of Nice sixty-thousand (60.000) francs, as well as my collections of musical instruments and accessories, scores and books music, on the sole condition of allotting six hundred (600) francs per year to a luthier charged with the maintenance of the instruments ; I believe that Mr. Francois Bovis, luthier, would be the most fitting for this task.
Following the Antoine Gautier bequest, the city of Nice has continued to enrich this collection, which has been successively exhibited or preserved at the Musée des beaux-arts de Nice, the Musée Masséna, the Conservatoire de Nice, and today at the Palais Lascaris.
Highlights of the Collection
Among the most important instruments are :
a tenor sackbut by Anton Schnitzer (Nuremberg, 1581);
several violas d'amore by Joannes Florenus Guidanti (Bologna, 1717), Gagliano (Naples, 1697), Johann Schorn (Salzburg, 1699) and Johann Ott (Füssen, 1727);
several violas da gamba including that by William Turner (London, 1652);
a bass violin by Paolo Antonio Testore (Milan, 1696);
several extremely rare baroque guitars, including one by Giovanni Tesler (Ancona, 1618), one by René Voboam (Paris, c. 1650) and one by Jean Christophle (Avignon, 1645), which is one of the earliest surviving dated French guitars;
several eighteenth-century recorders, including one by Johann Christoph Denner (Nuremberg, early eighteenth century);
an anonymous eighteenth-century harpsichord (formerly a claviorganum);
numerous harps : the first prototypes built by Sébastien Érard, including his first single-action harp and his first double-action harp; and a harp by Naderman (Paris, 1780) which formerly belonged to the Viscountess of Beaumont;
a rare collection of clarinets;
numerous experimental string instruments ;
several instruments made by Adolphe Sax, including a quartet of saxophones and a saxotromba;
French keyboard instruments from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, including a Pleyel piano (Paris, 1863) which once belonged to the Cercle Masséna in Nice;
one of the most famous guitars by Antonio de Torres (Almeria, 1884) still in playable condition;
a large collection of instruments from the South of France ;
approximately fifty nineteenth-century non-European instruments from the Gautier collection.
In 2009, the AXA insurance group placed on permanent loan at the palais Lascaris the Gaveau-Érard-Pleyel Archives, presented to the public in two exhibitions : Érard, l'invention de la harpe moderne, 1811-2011 in 2011 and Le Clavier vivant/The Living Keyboard in 2012. This loan was cancelled in 2013.
The historical musical instrument collection of the Palais Lascaris is part of the MIMO (Musical Instrument Museums Online) Project, whose notices are accessible on the site of Europeana.

Palais Lascaris

This 16th century hilltop fort was built in 1557 and is almost perfectly preserved, it looks out over the coastline of the French Riviera all the way to the Italian border. Mont Alban is located in the east of Nice in the Mont Boron National Park area, with Nice on one side and Villefranche-sur-Mer on the other - you can hike up to the fort from either town. The castle was built on the orders of the Duke of Savoy in response to the siege of Nice; when you get up there you’ll understand why he chose this spot - the view in all directions couldn’t be any better.
The scale of the scenery up here is just breathtaking; looking out from the front of the castle you can see the peninsula of Cap Ferrat jutting out to your far left with the bay of Villefranche-Sur-Mer curving round below the cliffs, just a few strides to the other side of the castle and the city of Nice unfolds beneath you. The fabulous views of the coastline stretch from Cap d’Antibes in the west all the way to Bordighera (Italy) in the east and on a clear day you can just about make out Corsica in the distance.
The condition of the fort is really very impressive - we’re not talking about a ruin here, it is a fully intact building where you can literally walk up the steps to the massive wooden front-door (although you are advised not to stand on the drawbridge). Look up to the turrets and you’ll see the sun glinting off the beautiful coloured tiles that overlap like fish scales, then stroll all around the fort to see the towers and crenellations.
https://www.seenice.com/castles/le-fort-du-mont-alban-nice-area-673975

Fort du mont Alban

To protect the County of Nice from invaders, the Duke of Savoy built the Saint-Elme citadel in the 16th century, together with the satellite fortresses of Mont-Alban and Saint-Hospice, and the port of La Darse where the galleys were moored. These constructions entrusted to Italian engineers were fore-runners of a new type of bastion fortification. Today, this remarkable complex (7.5 acres) accommodates the Town Hall, the Volti, Goetz-Boumeester Museums and the Roux Collection.
https://www.spottinghistory.com/view/7876/citadelle-saint-elme/

Citadelle Saint-Elme

Having been deserted for a long time it was known as the "Gordo Site" it then became Gordon" and finally Gourdon. .
758 mètres of a remarkable rocky peak. 
A stony and lavender scented landmark situated in the vast Roman Province which the natives retained as "province", characterised it and it became the marvellous "Provence" as it is today. 
But the Romans went back to Rome and the barbarian settled in. Frank kings conquered and Saracens troops demolished. The castle became refuge and natural shelter to the valley's farmers.
In the IX century, three centuries before Paris laid down the very first stone for the construrtion of the Louvre, the Gourdon castle had already existed. Certainly different to what it is today, the old foundation still exits, grounded in the rock, witness to a thousand year past.
From then on, the destiny of Gourdon was to be an armed sentry, guarding as far as the sea's horizon and controlling the troops in procession. Being at the forefront of France, in comparison to the house of Vintimille, future Earl of Nice situated on foreign and hostile ground. 
Up until the XII century, the Earls of the Pronnce, drew up plans of a real fortress to make their frontier more resilient. They razed, rebuilt and strengthened the c astle. Insurmountable high walls were razed in the north wing, and look out posts on the southern and western side of the castle. Later on, with three towers and a dungeon crowning the castle, with a watchful eye, and an arm in hand, Gourdon watched out for France.
https://www.provenceweb.fr/06/chateau-gourdon/ukhistoire.htm

Château de Gourdon

The modest-sized castle Château de Tourrette-Levens dates back to the 12th century. It overlooks the ancient 'salt road'. The castle was buily by Raymond Chabaud whose family owned the estate until 1684. The castle was one of the finest in the region with six towers. Only one tower survives. Today it hosts a museum devoted to entomology.
https://www.spottinghistory.com/view/7877/chateau-de-tourrette-levens/

Château de Tourette-Levens

The Musée de la Castre presents collections belonging to the city of Cannes: primitive art of Himalaya-Tibet, Arctic, pre-Columbian America, Oceania, Mediterranean antiquities, musical instruments from Asia, Afric, Oceania, America, nineteenth-century landscape painting with the little masters of Provence.
This conventual building (belonging to the abbots of Lérins), is built on a quadrangular plan, like that of a castle with a donjon, and incorporates into its defensive enclosure a main building and a chapel. In the middle of the central courtyard stands a square tower of the XIIth century, the height of which would allow the watch. It offers an exceptional 360 ° panorama on Cannes and its region. 
Le Musée de la Castre présente des collections appartenant à la ville de Cannes : arts primitifs (ou premiers) d'Himalaya-Tibet, Arctique, Amérique pré-colombienne, Océanie, antiquités méditerranéennes, instruments de musique du monde d'Asie, Afrique, Océanie, Amérique, peinture de paysage du XIXe siècle avec les petits maîtres de Provence.
Édifice conventuel (appartenant aux abbés de Lérins), il est construit sur un plan quadrangulaire, comme celui d’un château avec donjon, et il intègre dans son enceinte défensive un corps de logis et une chapelle. Au milieu de la cour centrale se dresse une tour carrée du XIIe siècle dont la hauteur pouvait permettre le guet. Elle offre un panorama exceptionnel à 360 ° sur Cannes et sa région.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMTQDR_Muse_de_la_Castre_Cannes_France

Musée de la Castre

Situated in the Bay of Cannes, the royal fort, a state prison, played host to the Iron Mask from 1687 to 1688 and then, after the war, to Marshall Bazaine.
To the south east of la Croisette, the archipelago of the Lérins islands separates the Gulf of Napoule to the west from the Gulf of Jouan to the east. It comprises four islands: two large ones (Sainte-Marguerite and Saint-Honorat) and two small ones (the islet of la Tradelière and the islet of Saint-Féréol). The island of Sainte-Marguerite is the closest to Cannes, just 700 metres from the Palm-Beach headland, and the most extensive, covering more than 160 hectares. The island takes its name from a chapel built there in honour of the martyr of Antioche during the first centuries of Christianity. After the occupation of the island by the Romans, whose traces still remain today, for many centuries Sainte-Marguerite belonged to the monks of Lérins. In 1617, the Duke de Guise gave Jean de Bellon the task of building a fort intended to block access to Cannes. Constructed between 1624 and 1627 on the site of remains dating back to Roman antiquity, at the time it was nothing more than a simple fortified house.
This small fortification was enlarged and strengthened by the Spanish who occupied the islands of Lérins from 1635. Two bastions and the first barrack buildings were added to the existing construction. With a garrison of approximately 800 men on the island of Sainte-Marguerite, the Spanish troops were faced with the vital question of supplying drinking water and invented a system for collecting rainwater, which fed into a large well built upon enormous tanks. Today you can still see the four decantation basins where the water was purified before filling one of the two tanks set under the well. In 1637, the French took back the Islands of Lérins, and named the citadel the Royal fort. The fortification was then considerably strengthened: the moats were made deeper, the curtain wall was raised and two demi-lunes were then linked to the fort by elevated walkways, which have since disappeared. The royal governor, Guitaut, also had a "tenaille" built, a low bastion placed in front of the entrance gates to the fort, which bears his name today.
At the end of the 17th Century, Louis XIV's general commissioner of fortifications personally inspected the fort, and gave instructions to strengthen the square. Work carried out as a result of Vauban's visit give the fort most of the appearance that we still recognise today. 26 metres above sea level, the structure projects over a rocky cliff on the northern coast of the Island of Sainte-Marguerite, opposite cape Croisette. It is a small fort that is pentagonal in shape, flanked by four bastions at its weak points, on the land side. On the coastal side, the structure's stone ramparts are supported by an earth embankment and blend remarkably into the sheer cliff. Inside the compound, a chapel, and several barns used to house the troops and the artillery stores still survive today. Amongst the latter, we can see the impressive building that constituted the powder store, surrounded by the walls of the royal bastion to the south of the fort, probably intended to reduce the consequences of any accidental explosion. After this, the structure was the subject of minor alterations. And so, in 1862, a semaphore was constructed by raising one of the fort's old towers. Later, during the occupation by German troops during the Second World War, a surveillance station was established on one of the fort's triangular promontories Today, several buildings are in ruins and the invading vegetation is gradually taking over the demi-lunes and the ramparts. However, teams of young workers from Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur have been helping to renovate the fort for more than thirty years. The ramparts have been made safe and building repairs and much restoration work have been carried out so as to make visits possible to this fortification, which is unique along the Cannes coastline.
From 1637 onwards the first cells were fitted out in the governor's château. But it was in 1685, at a time when the Royal fort accommodated a large garrison, that the fort was dedicated definitively and first and foremost to be used as a state prison. So, in 1687, Governor Saint-Mars, on the orders of Louis XIV, had a parallelepiped stone building constructed inside the compound, inside which several cells were soon fitted out. The prisoners held inside the fort include most notably: [list]the famous, but nevertheless unidentified, Iron Mask, held for 11 years from 1687 to 1698; [list]Six protestant pastors, imprisoned following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, from 1689 until their death in 1713; [list]Jean-Baptiste Suard, who would become the eternal secretary of the French Academy, incarcerated between 1751 and 1753; [list]The Smala d'Abd el-Kader, from 1843; [list]600 Austrian prisoners, detained in 1859 after the battle of Montebello; [list]Marshall Bazaine, the only prisoner to have escaped from the Royal fort in 1873, in what legend describes as a fantastic escape and after whom a terrace of the fort is today named. The Royal fort also has a smaller detention area, reserved for soldiers. The Museum of the Sea, located inside the fort, allows visitors to look at some of the cells, including that of the Iron Mask, as well as those occupied by the protestant pastors, to whom there is now a memorial.
On the Island of Sainte-Marguerite Although the Museum of the Sea allows visits to the inside of the Royal fort compound and its dark cells, it also has a second museographic area, which houses an important collection of submarine and land archaeology. In the heart of the old roman reservoirs and recently restored chambers, the museum exhibits the wrecks of boats that ran aground off the shores of the Islands of Lérins. Visitors can also see a model reconstruction of the roman water reservoir system, a collection of painted designs dating back to antiquity and a room housing aquariums presented by the permanent centre of initiatives for the environment, which display the underwater flora and fauna of the Mediterranean. Inside the fort, an entertainment and accommodation centre has been established which is able offer different types of holidays to a varied clientele: introductory classes and training courses for sport or cultural activities for schools, playing host to business associations or committees, organising seminars etc. Lastly, the island of Sainte-Marguerite is able to welcome around half a million visitors per year because it can also offer an extraordinary natural heritage. The island is criss-crossed by forest paths and a coastal path that allows a circuit of the island close to the clear seabed. A well-marked botanical trail allows visitors to spot the many kinds of maritime plants and trees. To the west of the island, the Batéguiers lake offers shelter to the many migrating birds that can be observed throughout the year. Its 150 hectares of pine and eucalyptus forests make the island of Sainte-Marguerite a unique setting for quiet walks along the coastline of the Alpes-Maritimes. The national forestry office is responsible for the protection of the island's remarkable forest plantations, welcoming the public by offering activities as an introduction to this rich natural environment. On the island of Saint-Honorat The island of Saint-Honorat has several chapels, constructed very early on to welcome pilgrims. Although today one of them is in ruins, the six others were restored in the 17th century and more recently with the aid of the original plans. At one end of the island there is a cannonball oven, employed by the artillery of the First Empire to heat the projectiles used to set fire to the wooden boats that threatened the coasts. The island is also home to the abbey of Lérins, which houses a community of about thirty monks of various nationalities, who cultivate lavender and work the vines. A jewel of the feudal architecture of the Provence area, the fortified monastery was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries and is open to the public. The abbey produces a liqueur made from around thirty aromatic plants, whose recipe remains secret and which must be consumed in moderation.
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/royal-fort-royal-island-sainte-marguerite