Menton

Noli, Finale Ligure, Finalborgo, Verezzi

http://www.turismoinliguria.it/turismo/en/Territorio/bandiereBlu.do?contentId=12591

http://www.visitriviera.it/en-US/finale_ligureen.html

http://www.turismoinliguria.it/turismo/en/VacanzeAtema/borghiStoria.do?contentId=8671

http://www.turismoinliguria.it/turismo/en/Territorio/borghi.do?contentId=8880

Thanks for your suggestions and the links. Do you have any suggestions for specific hotels for one night?

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g187231-Menton_French_Riviera_Cote_d_Azur_Provence-Hotels.html

We liked Princess& Richmond

Noli,really charming,a medieval quarter, castle, etc nice waterfront promenade,,with very nice hotel Palazzo Vescovile and great food, Il Vescovane,..click on my user name to see where I asked a similar question and you'll see my follow up comments.
Use the autostrada. When leaving Noli get back on the autostrada to Nice. You'll ride high above the coast, beautiful mountain views to the north, sea to the south.French Mystique Travel has good photos of Noli.
If you're returning the car at the Nice airport, you can exit right there and take the airport bus into the city.
Our chipless US credit card worked fine on the autostrada in Italy but not in France so you'll need to have change..Several tolls of a few Euros plus change to get to Nice.

This is what I posted on the earlier Riveiera Ponente thread after our trip to Noli
"We stopped in Noli, Liguria overnight on our way from Tuscany to Nice and found it to be a delightful small town set on a beautiful bay. Noli has a medieval quarter with winding streets and alleys, a beautiful beach and palm lined waterfront avenue.There is also a large castle up on the hill.
We stayed at the historic Palazzo Vescovile, the former Bishop's Palace, up on the hill with sweeping sea views. Access is by elevator from an area next to the sea, up to a funicular.You ring a buzzer and staff come down to take your luggage up and another leads you to their safe, protected free parking.
Our room was a duplex with the sleeping area upstairs, good a/c,and a bonus was a 15th century fresco on the wall.
Dinner outside overlooking the sea at their Michelin star restaurant Il Vescovane was superb, The service and our seafood dinners were both excellent. Reservations are a must as Il Vescovile filled up quickly. Noli is a gem on the Riviera Ponente and highly recommended if you are driving through this area."
I highly recommend the local seafood speciality Cappon Magro, a tower of fish, shellfish, potatoes and vegetable, delicious.

Thanks again - really appreciate all the input and links!

Albenga is great too, but you want to be in the centro storico.


As one Fodor's poster so memorably put it, Menton is like Daytona Beach. It gets better if you spring for a taxi into its historic center. Personally, I would prefer to extend the joy of eating Italian food for as long as possible.

I've got a trip report about exploring the western Italian Riviera (Riviera delle Palme) that that has lots of photos of Noli, Verezzi, Finalborgo, Finale Ligure and many other places but I'll let you know that it is a lengthy report and you should skip down to replies 11 and 12 to see Finalborgo and Verezzi and to see Noli and Finale Ligure look at replies 18 and 20. Here is the link to my report:

http://tinyurl.com/bjgz52m

Great pictures and information!

Thanks. Hope you have a great time there.

To HappyTrvlr - thank you for your recommendation of the Palazzo Vescovile and their restaurant Il Vescovane. The stop there worked perfectly for our itinerary, and we enjoyed our stay in this wonderfully unique place, as well as the little town of Noli.

Nice to hear back from you bcsa and glad you got to experience this less visited part of the Riviera, and also got some great advice from HappyTrvlr.

FrenchMystique, late yesterday I was looking at your travel report and pictures of the Noli area once again; and they brought back fun and fond memories of our recent stop there, which was far too brief. Thank you for sharing them. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some of ours before too long. On our walk up the path to the castle from the hotel, we stopped at the amazing cemetery, way up on the hill. The area around the castle was closed off for renovations and repairs of some sort; but the views of Noli and the sea in the distance were beautiful. It was fun walking up to the castle on the path and then down to Noli on the town road. Not many people in Noli spoke English, but we were able to use tourist sign language to communicate with the friendly people in the small stores to buy bread, cheese, olives, and ice cream. The restaurant waiters usually got our orders right, too. If they didn't, what they brought seemed to be even better than what we thought we had ordered. Noli is high on our list of favorites - all because we learned about it from you and HappyTrvlr.