[en] With the achievement of new facilities in the 80's providing us heavy ion beams well above the Coulomb barrier, a unique opportunity was offered to the experimentalists to produce and study nuclear matter under extreme conditions. Effectively, in the energy range 20-100 MeV/u, on which we will concentrate in these lectures, it appeared very rapidly that excited nuclei could be formed at rather high temperatures. These lectures are intended to give an overview of the experimental status in this ''hot'' domain. Other lectures are more focused on the theoretical point of view. This paper will be arranged as follows: In a first part, the conceptual problems one might have to face will be introduced. A long chapter will be then devoted to the different experimental methods used so far in order to characterize the hot nucleus. We shall then discuss what can be learned from the study of deexcitation of nuclei at high T. The fourth part will be focused on the experimental evidences for the existence of limiting temperatures. Finally, a brief discussion will follow related to possible clues for the onset of nuclear instabilities at this critical temperature