I am traveling with a friend (we%26#39;re both 27) to the French Riviera near the end of May and we are staying in Nice. We%26#39;ll be in Nice from Saturday through Tuesday and I was wondering what other cities we should try to visit. We will certainly take a trip over to Cannes since we will be there during the film festival, but we were wondering what other places we should visit. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
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Some us posters on Tripadvisor have already written up (with pictures!)a lot of useful hints and tips about what to see and do around the Riviera,including restaurants, off the beaten path, and more useful still what to avoid.
You could do worse than my own travel pages starting here
members.virtualtourist.com/m/6cdeb/188b0/
but there are many other excellent insider tipsters on Virtualtourist. Its complementary to the travel advice here!
Cheers
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My advice is to do a search or browze the posts on the Cote d%26#39;Azur forum here. Your question has been asked and answered many times.
Also look at www.allaboutnice.com for good information as well as NiceLife%26#39;s travel pages on virtual tourist.
St Paul de Vence has an excellent modern art museum, art galeries in the old town, and a beautiful cemetary. Eze Village is also a pretty medieval city with a cactus garden at the top of it%26#39;s hill and breathtaking views of the area.
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Do I understand that you have already reserved hotel rooms? You%26#39;ll be in Nice at a very busy time; so I hope your hotel is confirmed.
I%26#39;d avoid Cannes during the film festival--there%26#39;s not much to see unless you have passes to some of the vents, and things will be VERY crowded. Instead, take the train over to the little town of Villefranche, then on to the peninsula of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat for a look at how the rich and famous hide their homes.
If you don%26#39;t have a car you could take the bus up to the famous perched village of St-Paul-de-Vence; there%26#39;s a world-class, partly outdoors modern art museum close by, the Fondation Maeght.
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Here are my usual suggestions.
Here are some suggestions.Of course you will have to help yourself with a guidebook. Since you will be there for a week, I suggest you get one that gives info info mostly on Nice and not Provence and Côte d’Azur. I have one by Hachette Books titled “A weekend in Nice”, it includes also a city map.
Websites like the Nice city’s Tourist Bureau website http://www.nicetourisme.com/GB/somtxt.html and one for the Old Town http://www.oldnice.com/ may be helpful.
There are musts like walking on the Promenade des Anglais , both looking at the sea, the beach and the hotels.
The Old Town and the Cours Saléya: Start from Place Masséna and walk towards the Promenade on Rue de l’Opéra. Make a left on Rue St-Francois-de-Paule, check the boutiques but don’t buy there (touristy prices way too high). Walk straight ahead to the Marché aux Fleurs (Cours Saléya). There is a market every day except Mondays. Walk to the end of the market and you get to the Chapelle du St-Suaire. Make a left on J” Gilly street . It ends on Rue de la Préfecture. Make a left there and walk until you reach Rue Ste-Réparate. Make a right and you will see the Cathedral Ste-Réparate and get on Place Rossetti. Very typical (look at the warmth of colours if you are there 1hr or 2 before sunset). A left on Rue Rossetti until you reach Rue Droite. Make a left on Rue Droite and walk to its end. Stop by Palais Lascaris (free visit) and some nice artist shops (check Christian Dury’s gallerie =%26gt; he puts typical Nice things in Plexiglas frames). Rue Droite falls into Rue St-François the in Rue Pairolière. Both typical Old Nice streets with locals shops, food store, fish and meat stores, etc. Open your eyesand your ears and take a deep breath. Now you see the real thing. You get to the Place Garibaldi. Time for lunch. Help yourself, there are plenty nice spots at cheap prices.
From Place Garibaldi keep your right and stay on Rue Catherine Ségurane from where you will get a road that brings you up the Castle Hill (Colline du Chateau). Walk up to its top and have a look at the whole area (the Port, the beaches, the town). Stop by the Cemetery on your way down and wak to the Port. Look at the small fishermen boats on Quai des Deux Emmanuel. And walk back to town circling the Castle Hill by walking on the sea side to reach back Promenade des Anglais.
That one should take not far from a day long, especially if you stop often at boutiques or for an ice cream cone…
Another nice day is going to Villa Éphrussi Rotschild by Bus 81 (starts from Gare Routière). It accepts regular bus tickets (4 euro fro a day, around 15 euro for a week pass with unlimited travel). Ask the driver for the name of the bus stop right at the doorsteps of the Villa. A superb mansion with 7 fantastic gardens. 2hours of pure delight. Wanna have fun and see the real thing once again. When you get out of the Villa walk to your left. The road goes up a bit, walk on the road to your left. It goes down towards St-Jean-Cap Ferrat where you can stop for lunch and get back to Nice with Bus 81 once again. Or you could even walk on the seaside towards Bealieu-sur-Mer using the trail called Sentier des Douaniers. It is about an hour walk and you could then visit Beaulieu, its Villa Kerylos and get back to Nice by train.
You are there on a Friday. Take the train to Vintimille (Ventimiglia in Italian), a small Italian town where you have a well-known market. You can’t get lost. When you get out of the train station walk straight ahead. 200 ft and it’s crowded, you just found the market! Before getting in it, look on your right for the food market. You wanna see Italians wheeling and dealing? Get in there and have fun? Back to the real market, you can get good deals on leather, cashmere wool, etc. Beware the Africans dealers. It’s no good deal!. The morning is enough for the market. There are some nice rItalian restaurants at cheap prices if you don’t mind walking a block or 2 on your right (eastbound), getting away from the market. Back on the train to Nice, get down at Monaco (not the Ste-Dévote Chapel exit at the back of the train butr the on at the head of the train). Have fun for the afternoon in Monte-Carlo.
Already 3 days gone. Like art? Get a car or take the bus to Vence and St-Paul-de-Vence. It’s about ¾ hour from Nice and take the day for both villages. If you rented a car and feel like shopping with the locals crowd, stop by St-Laurent-du-Var Cap 2000 shopping centre. A huge one.
Museums? Like Modern Art? The Mamac Museum of Modern Art is a must. Then you have both Chagall and Matisse Museum on bus route 15 from the City centre.
Wanna shop? Rue Jean Médecin, rue de l’Hotel des POstes. Rue Gioffredi are all street you should not miss and you have the Centre de l’Étoile shopping Centre on Rue Jean Médecin along with the Galeries Lafayette, the Monoprix for food and clothes and the FNAC for records and books (along with Virgin Megastore across the street). There are walking only streets close to that area and they are fuil of shops and restaurants.
You could take the bus to Eze-Village, a medieval village that must be seen. Menton along the coast is also quite nice to see and has its own Old Town.
Westbound towards Cannes, you have Antibes and Juan les Pins that can be reached easily by bus.
If you rent a car, Mougins and Biot are quite nice to see.
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Thanks for all of the helpful advice and for pointing me to some good info. I do have one more question - I was planning on getting a eurail pass because i%26#39;m traveling to Venice and then Rome, so I was going to get a 4 day pass so I would have two days for the Riviera. It sounds though like the buses are the more practical way to go. Would I be wasting my money by trying to travel around the Nice area by train? thanks!
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Are you from Birmingham Alabama, Birmingham some-place-else or Brummigem, England? If the last ignore the rest of this post...
If you are coming from the US I suspect that a railpass would not be a good purchase. The distances you might travel by train on the Riviera - Nice-Monte Carlo or Cannes or even Menton or Ventimiglia are fairly short, and fares are not expensive so you couldn%26#39;t really justify using Railpass days for those. Even your trips to Venice and Rome would probably be cheaper if you bought point-to-point tickets.
You can travel from Nice to Venice by direct night train in about 11 hours I think, or by day train in about 8-9 nhours but you will have to change trains at leasst once on the daytime options. Venice to Rome is about a 4.5 hour trip by the fastest trains.
You can research timetables at
www.voyages-sncf.com
for trains from Nice to Venice, and
www.trenitalia.it for trains from Venice to Rome.
If all else fails use www.bahn.de to research timetables, but you won%26#39;t be able to purchase tickets on that (the German rail) site.
You will need reservations for these trains, and pre-booking the Nice to Venice one at least is probably a good idea, especially if you want to use the night train.
Another option would be to fly from Nice to Venice with AlpiEagles, an Italian-based budget airline, about which I know nothing other than that they exist and fly this route.
www.alpieagles.com
Also Ryanair flies from Venice to Rome, but by the time you take airpoty transfers etc. into account, you probably won%26#39;t save much if any time or money.
www.ryanair.com
Good luck!
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Make that %26quot;airport transfers%26quot; not that other thing...
:%26gt;)
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Thanks for the great advice!! I checked out alpieagles and the flight is about an hour and is actually less expensive than a train ticket. So, I am thinking of booking it, but the website is in Italian which makes me a little nervous. I have been able to navigate it enough to see prices, times, etc but I am hesitant to put my credit card number in. Any suggestions? There is a pull down menu to see the site in English but it is not working for some reason.
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