Antibes, Cannes or St. Tropez as a base?
 

I will be travelling alone for the Easter weekend in the south of France and I wonder where would be a good base from which to explore? I enjoy fine restaurants, beaches, open air markets, spas, nightlife and festivals. I will be renting a car. Any hotel suggestions (approx 3 star) would be wonderful.<BR><BR>Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Saint-Tropez is the most isolated and it does not have a train station but it is my absolute favorite. It's wonderful and very charming. However, quite expensive like Cannes and Antibes. If you're looking for an inexpensive town, Saint-Tropez is NOT it.<BR>

Brenda,<BR><BR>I think Nice would be best, since it will give you a good place to base yourself from for easy day trips, and probably offers the largest range of hotel prices. If you do a search here, you should be able to come up with some decent three star hotels. Nice has a pebbly beach, which isn't the greatest, but at that time of year, it probably won't matter much. Exploring Vieux Nice with its beautiful flower market, galleries,cafes, and inexpensive bistros, is wonderful to do in the summer, but I'm not sure how much of it is open that time of year. Anyway, good luck, and have a great time!

Wendy,<BR><BR>Thanks for your input. Sorry, I should have specified earlier - I was in Nice last June and fell in love with the city. I will probably spend one day in Nice but I want to explore more areas in the Cote D'Azur / other than Nice and Monaco. <BR><BR>Thank you<BR>Brenda

Brenda,<BR><BR>No problem re Nice. I would not recommend Cannes or Antibes, but what about a suburb of Cannes, Juan-les-Pins, which is located about 6 miles from Cannes? Juan-les Pins has excellent rail connections to most of the other Riveria towns, as well as one of the better beaches (Plage de Juan les Pins) in the area, although at Easter, you might not get much use out of it. Has a very beautiful town park, too. One place recommended by French friends, which we have not stayed at, is Hotel Cecil, which is just off the beach. It's not the most deluxe property around, and the rooms have seen better days, but it is clean and cheap! Good luck. Have a wonderful time. How could you not??

Wendy is right! Juan-les-Pins is also great for nightlife because there are some great disco's there that are very popular. And the beach there is nice as well. As I mentioned earlier, I really love Saint-Tropez but it is isolated on the end of a peninsula only accessible with the car or bus or the ferry from Saint-Raphael (takes about 30 minutes). But the surrounding countryside there is lovely and the town itself very, very charming with a great open air market once a week in Place des Lyces.