Thermes de l'Est

Thermes de l'Est preserves the foundations of a Roman bath complex in Nice, within the archaeological remains of Cemenelum. Built between the late first and early second century CE, it formed one of three bath complexes in a city that covered at least twenty hectares.

The surviving structures reveal how Roman heating worked: a praefurnium sent hot air beneath floors supported by terracotta tiles, while hollow tubuli warmed the walls. The southern section contains a lime kiln and an apsidal room whose precise function remains uncertain. A north-to-south sequence once led from the frigidarium through the tepidarium and laconicum to the caldaria.

Cemenelum became the capital of Alpes Maritimae, supplied by aqueducts measuring about five and seven kilometres. Excavations here began in the nineteenth century, and the site gained historic-monument status in 1958. The clearest detail is the hypocaust infrastructure, where empty spaces beneath the floor carried heat through the baths.