My husband and I had a great week in Nice over Christmas. We are Australians but live in the UK and caught the Eurostar from London to Lille where we stayed overnight. We have stayed in Lille before and it was good to have the familiarity of knowing where our hotel was and the layout of the city, etc. The next morning we caught the TGV from Lille to Nice. I must say I didn't find the French countryside particularly scenic or interesting. The best part was around the middle of France where we saw mile after mile of snow covered farm land and trees. That was a novelty for us, it looked so pretty. We enjoy travelling by trains rather than flying, where it's possible, as train travel is much easier and less stressful than all the airport hoo-ha that goes on these days.

We had an apartment booked through www.nicepebbles.com which was centrally located and probably the nicest apartment we have ever stayed in. It was comfortable and stylish with new bathrooms and kitchen. Everything was good quality and it was extremely well equipped. The only thing I would have liked was a proper oven. It had a microwave that grilled/crisped and we had a bit of difficulty figuring out how to operate it. The apartment was about 20 mins walk from the train station, 5 mins walk to the main street with loads of shops and cafes etc and 10 mins walk to the bus station and Old Town. I found the agency website through a recommendation on www.slowtrav.com and they were very good to deal with.

We had quite good weather though it wasn't as warm as we hoped. We had one and half days when we arrived when there was light rain nearly all day, then the rest of the week was bright and sunny but cool, about 12-14 degrees celsius.

We found there was lots to do and Nice was very busy. When we were looking for ideas of where to spend Christmas, one of the things we were concerned about was ending up somewhere that had that 'deserted resort' feel. Well, Nice was nothing like that! It was vibrant and full of people. The restaurants we visited were all full in the evenings and the buses we caught along the coast were full too. We had been in online contact with a friendly American couple who were going to be in Nice at the same time, and we caught up with them twice in Nice which we really enjoyed.

There are lots of places to visit along the coast, either by bus or train and we didn't get to visit as many as we would have liked. We caught the bus to Beaulieu-sur-mer and visited the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild which we really enjoyed. Also caught the bus to Vence and St Paul de Vence. We bought train tickets to visit the Ventimiglia market over the Italian border but when we reached Monaco we were told the train was terminating there. Our grasp of French is pretty basic but eventually we found out there was a train strike that day. We ended up spending the day in Monaco which we really enjoyed. The buses are very cheap to use, 1.30 euro each for a single trip, anywhere along the route. After getting used to the high cost of public transport in England, that seemed amazing to us.

Any questions, happy to help.
Kay

I am glad you enjoyed that area around Nice. I just love it there too, thanks for the report.

We love the Nice area at Christmas and plan to be there ourselves in December. Did you visit the Noël market in downtown Nice?

Thank you for posting this trip report. Just to let you know, we went to the market at Ventimiglia and were sorry we did, so IMO, you were better off in Monaco!

Thanks to all for reading! I get so much valuable info from other travellers reports, hopefully someone will use some of this info.

To SeaUrchin - we just wished we'd had more time in Nice. 8 nights flew by. We only visited a few nearby towns and villages and would have loved to visit more. I can see another trip coming up, maybe in warmer weather for a contrast (though not in peak season, the crowds would make me insane).

To Underhill - we saw the Christmas market with the little wooden huts but didn't walk through there. We've seen that sort of thing before. Took photos at night of the ferris wheel and the huge coloured figures on poles nearby. It looked spectacular against the night sky.

To Artlover - we debated at Monaco station what to do, once we'd found out about the strike we were told a bus was coming in 20 mins and could take us to Ventimiglia but it would be very crowded. After waiting for 15 mins, we were told that the bus had only just left Nice and we wondered if it would be full at that point. There were only 2 trains back to Nice that day and we figured it just wasn't worth waiting around for a bus that we possibly couldn't even get on, then we'd be worried about missing the train back. Monaco turned out to be a good day out!

Kay

Thanks for the post. I saw an apt. on the nicepebbles site that looked great and was wondering if it was as nice as it looked. Your post definitely helped me decide. Can you tell me the name of the apt. you stayed in?

Thanks.

Hi Linda,
It was Pastorelli. I did a vacation rental review on www.slowtrav.com because that's how I found the Nice Pebbles site in the first place. If you go into the SlowTrav site then click on France and Vacation Rental Reviews, scroll down and you'll see my review plus others who have stayed in the same area.
Kay

Hi Kay - we are also Australians and we loved the two days we spent in Nice! It has such a great atmosphere - something about it appeals to the Australian psyche!
We enjoyed most the views from the top of Castle Hill, wandering around the Vieux Ville, the Lemon Meringue Pie flavoured ice cream, the restaurant Acchiardo (amazing food), the vibrant nightlife and the hustle and bustle of the Cours Saleya. We also made it to Monaco but that appealed less, although the views of the harbour were breathtaking at dusk.

Thanks for the report Kay - very interesting! I am going to Nice this summer. We plan to get around on public transport as well. Our french is pretty rusty - did you find the public transport easy to use despite the language barrier?

Hi Ness, sounds like you liked the same things as us, we even went to that restaurant you mentioned. It was really nice. We were laughing saying if the tables were squashed in like that in Australia, people would complain and yet, in France, it just gave it atmosphere.

We had 2 days in Nice about 10 years ago and felt we'd just scratched the surface but even after the 8 nights there over Christmas, I still feel there was a lot to see we didn't have time for. Gee, looks like we'll have to go back

To Optimystic - our French is very basic and we managed so I'm sure you could too. The only time we came unstuck was when we caught the train to Ventimiglia and were told in Monaco it was terminating. We could get the drift of the announcement and also, everybody was getting off and they turned the lights off on the train. But we had trouble at first figuring out what was happening. We had to find someone who spoke English.

Using the buses was pretty easy. It's one set price, anywhere you go so just get on, hand 1.30 euro to the driver and get your ticket. Sometimes they want to know where you are going, so just say your destination. I can tell you, the way an Australian says Beaulieu is nothing like it sounds in French!! Don't forget to stamp (validate) your ticket as soon as the driver gives it to you, in the little yellow box. That puts the date and time on it.

We had no trouble with the language at all, we had the basic Bonjour Madame/Monsieur, merci, au revoir etc and smiled a lot. We found people to be pretty helpful and friendly though obviously any words you can learn before you go will be helpful. There is a great audio language translation site at http://www.travlang.com/ Very useful for knowing how it's supposed to sound!

The tourist office was helpful with bus timetables but it helps to know which destinations you are interested in as each timetable they give you covers a different area.
Kay

I am happy to see people saying good things about Nice, since a lot of people here say that Nice is not nice. Now if only we could get more positive reports about Marseille....