Cascade de Gairaut

This guide to the Cascade de Gairaut in Nice opens on masons mixing cement into the hillside in 1880, building something that had nothing to do with decoration. It traces the thirty-kilometer canal an engineer named Delacroix routed through ten kilometers of mountain tunnel, at a time when Nice had gone generations without a dependable water supply. Look for the stepped pools, the grotto's fake stalactites and the wooden chalet above, all modeled on fashionable Alpine spas like Baden-Baden.