Laura_A

This will be our first trip to France, excluding Paris. We’re taking a Rhône cruise, disembarking in Avignon in late June...we then have 10 nights until we fly out of Nice. The cruise includes a day in Arles (with a city walking tour and optional afternoon tour of Les Baux), and a day in Avignon (with a city walking tour and and optional afternoon tour of Pont du Gard). On the day we disembark, we thought we might rent a car at the Avignon train station. I could use some advice for the remainder of the trip...

3 nights in St. Remy or Gordes or Pernes-les-Fontaines
3 nights in ?
Drop car in Nice (at airport?) and spend 4 nights in Nice. Or maybe keep car one night to see area around Nice.

We enjoy driving and sight-seeing, walking, hiking, biking, and vegetarian food. Our accommodation budget is up to $200 a night.

burta

If you have a car, some towns you might enjoy are St. Remy, Aix, and Antibe before heading to Nice. From Nice you can daytrip to Eze, St. Paul de Vence, Vence and Monaco.

neckervd

May be you will like Marseille and the Calanques.

SeeDee

For what it's worth, we are staying in the area for 10 days in July - not our first visit to the Cote d'Azur though.
We fly into Marseille, stay 3 nights and train to Antibes for 7 nights, flying home from Nice.
While you say you enjoy motoring about, our experience has led us to confine ourselves to using public transport; the train service along the coast between Menton and Cannes gives great affordable access to all destinations in between. There is also bus links to places like Vence, St Paul du Vence and Eze from Nice; we have taken the pleasant train inland to Tende from Nice central station for a day trip.
Aix is a lovely town, not on our agenda this year, but should be manageable as a stop on the transfer Marseille-Antibes/Nice using the train. As a base on Cote d'Azur, we have found Beaulieu sur Mer very pleasant with a convenient train station and nice walking around Cap Ferrat.

ssander

Not spending a couple of days in Avignon? It has a lot to see, and is a good base. (And we took a very-reasonably-priced guided day tour from there to Nimes, Uzes and Pont-du-Gard.)
Also, when considering towns, be sure to research Roussillon.

ssander

StuDudley

My wife & I have vacationed for 43 weeks in this region, and I developed a 35 page itinerary that describes stuff to do in this area. I've sent it to over 3,000 people on Fodors. If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach one to the reply e-mail.

Stu Dudley

PalenQ

You do not need a car for Nice - as trains and buses easily go anywhere you want to go and driving can be frustrating due to traffic though in late June may not be so much a problem. For where to go by train or bus in Nice area check BETS-European Rail Experts. www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com.

ssander

I know some folks don't like Uber (and I fully understand why), but it's a great way to get to and from the Nice airport to city center. We were there in September and the bus only ran every 20 minutes and the line was so long, we knew we would never get into the next bus coming. Other than that, I, too, advise against using a car...the public transport in the city is fabulous.
ssander

SeeDee

ssander,
As you have used Uber in the area, would you foresee any difficulty for a non-French speaking person using the service? I have found being picked up at an airport or rail station in London sometimes requires speaking to the driver to establish where the pick up point is. In my case, we are talking Marseille Airport as start point.

PalenQ

Have some Francophone write out and have you practice a basic request like:

Hello

we need a ride from Nice Airport to xxxx in Nice, etc. How much is it, etc. I would assume many Uber drivers may speak some rudimentary tourist England but not much.

ssander

All the drivers we had spoke at least a little English...most spoke well enough for most Americans to understand and to be understood...after all, Nice (and its airport) is in the center of a big tourist area.. I speak very rudimentary French, so we had no problem. PalenQ's advice is spot on.

Remember, with the Uber app on your phone, you enter the pickup location and the app knows your location (it uses your GPS)...so the driver knows both before he/she agrees to the ride.

My only warning is the the pickup place is NOT the same place as the bus pickup area at the Nice airport...it's to the right with you facing toward the street. But Uber also let's you know the type of car, the license, and a photo of the driver...and it shows you the location/movement on the car on your phone map, so we could see where the car was moving into the passenger exit area. We waved him down as we walked to where he moved to the appropriate pickup spot.

You can be there before you call the car...we called the car from the bus location. The driver came so quickly, we had to hustle a bit to meet him.

ssander

isabel

With 10 days I would spend 4 in St Remy (with day trips), 2 in Aix on your way to Nice, 2 in Vence (close to Nice but the hill towns above Nice are best seen with a rental car) and the rest in Nice. If you wanted a day trip along the coast then buses and trains are good so drop the car when you get to Nice.

Here's a trip report I did a few years ago with essentially that itinerary. Photo Safari to the south of France, the Italian Rivera and the Swiss Alps

Photos are now at: Zenfolio | Isabel's_View | France

PalenQ

Vence is nice but very close to Nice and has excellent bus service from there. I'd consider dropping car in Nice and avoid driving in a very an often very congested area.

Sassafrass

Aix is one of the loveliest cities I have visited, so it would be on my list of recommendations.

suec1

I would suggest you find a way to include a visit to the Cathedral of Images (Luminares) in your trip. It is very close to Les Baux - maybe the optional includes that. It is a truly amazing and unique experience.

PalenQ

Yes Aix is unique and great - a university town with spendid tree-lined boulevards and a nice old section. Not as good for day trips as Avignon area IMO but a great few-day stop.

PalenQ

From Aix, the inland road route to Nice (actually to Cannes) is wonderful vs the busy boring coastal autoroutes most take. Stop by the Grand Canyon de Verdun - do a kayak or canoe ride perhaps. This was the Route de Napoleon - going thru hills around Grasse - built for military purposes and now a scenic road. The Riviera will be gridlock the later in July it gets. Consider basing in Antibes, a nice smaller city than Nice and use trains and buses to get around.

isabel

Re the decision to rent a car vs traveling by public transportation - both options have their pros and cons in various areas. Sometimes it's a no-brainer one option vs the other, but for this area it really depends on exactly what you want to see and do. So I would do some serious research before making any decision. You can get bus and train schedules on line so you can decide if there is sufficient public transportation to do what you want in the areas you'll be in. For example I didn't find buses from Nice to Vence to be frequent enough to make that a good option for me. Also there are other towns, only a few minutes away by car, but almost impossible to get to by bus on a day trip. So I'm glad I had a car when I did that. On another trip to Nice I used trains and buses to get to the various coastal towns I wanted to see and it was great. Point being you really need to decide what exactly you are going to do and then research options carefully.

Laura_A

Thanks for all the great suggestions! I still have a lot of research to do; it’s a bit overwhelming but I’m getting there!

PalenQ

I've traveled to every significant Riviera hill town and city by public transit and never found a problem.