If you got to Eze for lunch, this is lovely, 1300 feet up, looking down at the sea. Check the small outside deck for lunch. www.chateaueza.com/hotel-gallery.html

The other restaurant I mentioned was for dinner, but they also have lunch.

I should add that if you think I should drop a town or add one, please feel free to chime in.

Thanks Richard!

Antibes has a nice sandy beach - we went to the private beach where you paid for a chair and umbrella - also nice restaurant on site. Lovely day.

My most recent #1 travel experience - Villa Euphrisi on Cape Ferrat. Gorgeous villa with interesting audioguide and then amazing gardens, even a small fountain, music show about every 30 minutes. We went last Sept., not crowded at all - just wonderful.

Check out getting around on the bus from Nice - frequent service to many places along the coast, cheap! 1E to most places and usually very nice views. I think in this part of the world, the bus trumps the train.

There is much to do in the entire area, including Nice itself. Buses are all 1 euro, in town or to any of the towns you mention. Yes, the train can be faster, but they don't always run on time, particularly in the afternoon. My husband votes for train when possible.
Montecarlo, personally, is the least interesting town of all. You could go on to Menton after it, on the same bus route.
The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Cap Ferrat is not to be missed. A beautiful home with view of 2 bays full of yachts, gorgeous gardens, and a good audio guide telling you all about the eccentric woman who owned it. Take the bus from Nice, but be sure to ask the driver to tell you when you arrive at the stop, as it's very easy to miss it.
Antibes is just lovely, lots of boats, beautiful sea, and the Picasso Museum, full of contemporary art but no Picassos. You can walk to Cap d'Antibes once in Antibes, although we didn't do that. The food market there is fabulous, there are 3 markets on Thursday mornings in Antibes. For hill towns, visit St Paul de Vence and the gorgeous museum just down the hill (my favorite in that area), or go to Mougins, full of excellent restaurants and galleries.
For more details, you can read my blog posting earlier this summer on this site, and see pics and daily blog at http://mcgheetravel2012.blogspot.com/
The Renoir museum is currently closed.

You will be about 30 yards from the Nice beach at the Negresco - why wouldn't you swim there???

The LONG beach in Nice is loaded with alternating private sections (see my itinerary) and public sections. We like the private ones - and we traditionally go to Blue Beach - close to the Negresco. If you are just going to swim, go to a public section of the beach. If you want to indulge yourself, do it at a private concession.

There are dozens & dozens of "cute little villages" just inland from Nice. However, you'll see plenty of cute villages in Provence. What you won't see in Provence (in addition to water) is canyons & mountains like the several that are within 1 1/2 hrs driving from Nice. On your last full day in Nice, I would pick up your car and explore these canyons & mountain crests (see my itinerary for details).

Like many others on Fodors - we are not fans of Monaco. Too much congestion, noise, concrete, and glitz.

We have only driven through Ventimiglia once and chose not to stop. IMO, you will leave the Cote d'Azur without visiting many villages that are much closer to Nice, and that are far more interesting than Ventimiglia. Menton & Villefranche just to name two you can get to by train. St Paul, Vence, Peille, Peillon, & Biot are several "cute villages" that can be accessed by bus.

Stu Dudley

Italy is so different from France, it is worth crossing the border to experience that. However, Ventimiglia is not a lovely town, and San Remo is too large for easy parking. Bordighera is a pleasant beach town (Monet painted it). What is really interesting to do, however, is to drive a few miles inland, above San Remo, to Apricale. A nice place to park and have lunch is the restaurant La Favorita.

I believe you can drive the same corniche road that is famous from the Grace Kelly-Cary Grant movie To Catch a Thief to get into Italy from Nice. Part of it goes through Monaco, I think. Sorry I can't be more helpful about that, but it is nice day's excursion to go to the Italian Riviera for lunch, whether you take a drive through the hills to get there or use the main highway.

We won't have a car until we are leaving Nice; so we pretty much have to stick to places along train or bus routes. I had thought trains better as I'd read that the buses can be very slow.

Our favorite day trips were to Antibes (train), Cap Ferat with Villa Euphrussi and town of St-Jean(bus), and Villefranche(bus.)Enjoyed lunch in Monaco except for arrival of cruise ship tours. Bus follows the coast so pretty ride.

You can take a train to Bordighera. As I mentioned before, Monet painted there. The food is quite different from what you will get in France (in a good way. Try pesto). It is nicer than Ventimiglia. Just go for lunch. If you like you can stop in Ventimiglia on the way, or on the way back, if it is market day. Just be aware that the Ventimiglia market is like a huge outdoor Wal-Mart. If you like food markets, go to the covered market in San Remo. That is also an easy train ride from Nice.

Another vote for Villa Ephrussi. After you see the property, walk down to the harbor at St Jean Cap Ferrat for lunch on the water and/or take the beautiful walk around the peninsula with gorgeous views of the sea on one side and beautiful villas on the other.

If your considering dropping a town have you considered doing a day tour which would include Eze, Monte Carlo and Monaco?
the viator website? This might give you better time at other places intead of hurrying around?
I can recommend the tour below
http://www.viator.com/tours/Nice/Monaco-and-Eze-Small-Group-Day-Trip-from-Nice/d478-2356NCE10

Do keep in mind that the time at Eze on this tour was not very long and the view there is magnificent!
If you are thinking of spending some time in Eze then this is not for you.
Do you have any time when you pick up your car in Nice? there is a carpark just off the main coastal road at the bottom of the hill near Eze, if that is of any interest to you.

I see several references to the Villa Ephrussi. There is a wonderful book about this family "The Hare with the Amber Eyes".

We liked the Matisse Museum in Nice and the Fondation Maeght in St. Paul de Vence. Vence itself is interesting, as is the Matisse chapel.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/sets/72157624404539441/show/with/4805702820/ and the next 13 pictures.

We also recommend Menton and think that Ventimiglia is not worth the time

If you can all indulge me in thinking out loud...

I think that we will focus on day trips east of Nice and make our stops in Antibes/Cap d'Antibes and Cannes on our drive Saturday from Nice to Saint Saturnin-lès-Apt.
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So, Cap Ferat with Villa Euphrussi and town of St-Jean sounds good; Villefranche? Can we do these in one day??
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Ezes, Monte Carlo, Menton? one day?
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We still would like to make it into Italy and want to sample real Italian food for lunch or dinner. Bordighera and San Remo on a third day? Or should we do Menton and Bordighea together and skip San Remo?

Any and all input appreciated~~

St Paul... Vence, Matisse museum in Nice...

I don't think you'll have nearly enough time to check out of the Negresco, pick up a car at the train station, visit Antibes & Cannes, then drive 2 1/2 hrs to St Saturnin and get to the gite in time for the normal 4PM check in. Remember, if you want to cook food at the Gite on Sat or Sunday, you'll need to purchase food and any gite supplies (TP, soap, salt, pepper, olive oil) on Saturday. There is a huge hyper marche on the south side of the N100 just west of Apt. But I'm pretty sure it is closed on Sunday. Around 5PM on Saturdays, groceries are quite hectic because new gite arrivals are scurrying around to stock-up for the weekend. Allow enough time to do that on Sat after you check in & get an orientation at the gite. As you know, we've rented 52 gites and shopping on that first Saturday is something we don't look forward to. I will e-mail you our standard gite shopping list to give you an idea of what you may have to purchase. If you can't shop on Sat, go the the large grocery that is just north of l'Isle sur la Sorgue on the road to Pernes. They close around 1PM, so don't linger at the l'Isle sur la Sorgue outdoor market too long. There is also a farmer's market in Coustellet on Sunday mornings - but no TP or other staples there.

Plenty of Italian food in Nice - why go all the way to Italy??? At one time, Nice was part of Italy. If you MUST go to Italy, do it on Friday as your last day-trip (bet you'll decide not to go by then).

Stu Dudley

You will find more Italian food than French food in Nice, with lots of Italians as customers. You've gotten a lot of great advise about towns here that will be worthier of your time than stepping foot in Italy, but you should go if it beckons.
I like that someone mentioned Biot--so cute, and no crowds.
You will see yachts in every harbour and port. We had Italian seafood at the port, walked by all the boats to the sea wall, then cut into old Nice to people watch and have a gelato.

Yes, you can visit Villefranche and Cap Ferat the same day, same bus route along the coast. In St-Jean, there is outside upstairs seating at a little restaurant that pizza in the name. We had delicious seafood salads there.
Since Nice was part of Italy, there is plenty of good Italian food in the city.I wouldn't head into Italy just for the food.

We skipped Eze but enjoyed visiting Monaco. Menton is farther away and if you go there, I would take a train. We had two weeks in Nice and since you only have five days, I would only do one day trip. The wonderful Chagall Museum, and Matisse Museum, walking the Promenade, exploring Old Town, etc, lots to see and do.
St-Paul de Vence and the Maight Foundation are close by.

Deb, you might find some useful information in the trip report I did a few years ago. Just scroll down past the Paris part. I had four days in Nice and also did Eze, Monoco, Villefranche, and Antibes.

http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/thanksgiving-in-paris-isabel-goes-to-paris-and-the-cote-dazure.cfm

DebitMN:
We used Nice as our base when we explored the Cote d'Azur in Spring 2001, and we never had a car. Connections via train and bus were simple, and often, we had a choice of both to get to our destination.

I had a perfect book with daytrips, "Daytrips France: 48 One-Day Adventures by Rail, Bus or Car",(you can get a 2005 edition on Amazon), and one of the bases for the book was Nice. We made no plans ahead of time. Over breakfast, we'd read about a few places and decide where we'd head out. We had a good bus stop on our corner, and the train station was three or four blocks away.

A summary of what I can remember:

--Easy-peasy fun day(s): Villefrance, Beaulieu-sur-Mer (Villa Kerylos), Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (train and feet)
It's super easy to take the train to one of these from Nice, walk to one of the other spots to hop the train back to Nice. When we explored Menton and Monte Carlo on separate days, we'd often stop off at one of these on the way home and chill out for a bit before returning to Nice.

--Waste of our time: Grasse (via bus)

--Surprise along the way to Grasse: Mougins (via the same bus but you have to get up a hill) Cutsey.

--Nice hike and adventure: Eze from Eze-sur-Mer (train, footsies) Most people take the bus, but we'd hike it again.

--Pretty darn boring: Monaco (train)

--Secret fave museum: Menton (train) MUSÉE JEAN COCTEAU plus REALLY GOOD gelato. Really cute town.

--Our Renoir homage: Cagnes-sur-Mer (actually Haut Cagne). I think this is closed for renovations until 2013, but I swear you can feel Renoir there. We all said that we just see his house whenever we see his paintings now, too. Since the home is closed, you can skip the town.

--Chill-out town: Antibes (train) where we easily did the Picasso Museum there and walked out to Juan le Pins. I love this entire area. Artsy and foody.

--Petit Train fevor: Cannes (train) where we took TWO Petit Trains. Husband and kids think I'm nuts. I love, love, love Petit Trains. Cannes isn't really that grand, although I think they have a much better beach than does Nice.

--Art Heaven Two-fer: Vence and St. Paul de Vence (bus) We zipped up to Vence as though we were on a scavenger hunt. Located the Chagall Baptismal font, skipped over to the Matisse chapel. Hopped on the next bus back to St. Paul de Vence--The Fondation Maeght (modern art museum) is unbelievable. Then we whiled away the hours in the super cutsey town. Loved feeling the Yves Montand/Simone Signoret vibe there. Looked up Chagalls grave, too. You can skip Vence, but I do think you would enjoy St. Paul de Vence.

We did this all and saw a ton of things in Nice, too. For some odd reason, my kids were super big fans of Niki de Saint Phalle, so Nice's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was their mini-mecca. I adore Chagall, and the Chagall Biblical Museum was important to me. For some reason, none of us really like the Musee Matisse de Nice, though. Can't explain that.

Of course we explored the Flower Market, Old Town, etc in Nice, and I made them do the Petit Train there, too.

I know this is WAY too much art for a normal person, but as you can tell, we did a lot of hiking and gelato eating along the way, and it was very enjoyable.

We had at our disposal the "Cote d'Azur Pass", which allowed admission to art museums and exhibits all over the place.

I think that pass died, because I could only find leftover web snippets now. Now there's something called the "French Riviera Pass" that involves a darn Hop on/Hop Off bus.

AT least the Nice Museum of Modern and Contempory Art is free.

Such great info and input from everyone! Still working on a "loose" plan to allow for going with the flow.

Still going through info and trying to include/exclude places.

Thanks again~~

Food from Nice is NOT "Italian food". Just sayin'

Hi DebitNM,
As far as Bordighera goes, La Casa del Caffe (Corso Italia 15/A17) on the west side of town is a good place for a light lunch. Carletto (Via Vittorio Emanuele 339) is excellent, along with La Via Romana (Via Romana 57) - very expensive and check for opening. I can't remember where it was, but I found a great salami shop and grabbed some meat, cheese, bread and a bottel of wine and was happy to sit by the water for lunch. If you decide to spend a night there, Villa Elisa is wonderful even though it is not near the water. Enjoy!

ps - Although I have never been, the Friday flea and food market in Ventimiglia is supposed to be pretty neat.

A quick update. We had 5 great days in Nice, with one afternoon of very heavy rain.

We went took the train to Bordighera and had lunch there. It was very quiet and we walked along the sea and through a few streets. It was very nice.

We had time while we waited in Ventimiglia for the train to Bordighera, so we walked out to the sea and decided we would stop back on the ride back to e pore a bit more.

We actually thought Ventimiglia was nicer than Bordighera, a little more animated and lively.

We then took the train back, getting off for a few hours in Monaco. We walked down to the harbor and walked all the way around and back, stopped for an aperitif and them walked to Casino. Then back to get the train to Nice.

On Friday, we took the train to Villefranche sur Mer, where we spent time walking the beach, exploring the streets, having a lovely lunch, wading in the sea. What a delightful town. There was a crusade ship in, so there were folks about, but certainly not a huge inconvenience.

What was an inconvenience was a train strike! We didn't know that there was one so we bought our tickets and them waited an e tra half hour for a train, along with LOTS of people, over 100 for sure.

We wanted to get to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to go to Villa Ephrussi de Rothchild via train, but that would have meant waiting for 90 minutes, so we decided to take the bus. Good plan but none were coming by the stop. So, we walked. It wasn't too bad but the last stretch was getting old! The reward of the gardens were well worth it! Simply gorgeous and the views of Bealieu sure Mer were stunning. It took us 90 minutes to get a bus back, as many were full and didn't even stop at the bus stop.

All in all, our time in. Nice was well spent. Thanks for all of your input.

Sounds like a fun time! Where did the "x" go in your post?!?

TTT

Surfer girl - I don't know what the "x" comment means?

One more thing re: swimming in the Mediterranean - the surf was rougher than I would have been comfortable in, at least while we were there.

I felt that the beach at Villefranche was perfect. It was more sandy, uncrowned, the water was much gentler and there were a few lovely cafes along the water. All this, even with the cruise ship in port. I didn't bring a bathing suit on this day trip, unfortunately, so the wading was all I could do. If I had known how different this beach was, I would have grabbed my suit before leaving the apt.

"back to e pore a bit more"

"waited an e tra half hour"

It was almost like the old days where someone pinched the letter off the typewriter! That's what I meant by the missing "x"!

"One more thing re: swimming in the Mediterranean - the surf was rougher than I would have been comfortable in, at least while we were there"

Yeah, what was up with that? I noticed the same thing in July when we were there. Usually the water is almost like glass and super warm. Don't know if it was some weird tides or moons, or what, but the water was cooler, and there were some pretty sizeable (almost surfing!) waves!

Lol - I am not so good with my new iPad! The x is here, just gets a bit lost in the translation.

Since I didn't have anything to go by, didn't know if the water was atypical or not. It wasn't as warm as I thought it would be either and it was still fairly warm, air temp wise.

I was there in 2009 in mid-September and even at 9 a.m., the water was like bath water. Which is why I thought in July this summer, what's up with the temperature of the water! I mean, it was 90 degrees on the beach!

That explains the missing "x". I get the same issues with my iPad as well!

Villefranche sur Mer. Love that place! My first experience with it was visiting it in February, 1973 to find the house that the Rolling Stones stayed in while making Exile on Main Street!

I am hoping to stay in Nice for a week next year and visit some of the surrounding area, so topping this to get more ideas!!

Schnauzer

bookmarking...great help!

Here is a trip report if it helps... This is one of my favorite spots in the http://worldinbetween.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/three-days-in-the-cote-dazur-in-and-around-nice-france/

Enjoy!

thanks

Thank you worldinbetween for a great report about one of my favorite places to vacation.
Brings back many memories and excitement for my trip this May.