My friend wants to go from Nice to Venice as cheap as possible. It should be about 5.5h, so a bus or night bus might be possible, however I haven't found any companies that offer bus trips from Nice to Venice. Anybody now any trans-European bus companies that might have this available? Thank you so much in advance.

check the Eurolines web site - Eurolines is i think about the only consortium of bus companies that runs extensive regular routes around Europe.

Eurolines Italia : Viaggiare ogni giorno in libertà! - [ Translate this page ]
Viaggia in tutta Europa con i nostri autobus...Eurolines: Viaggiare ogni giorno in libertà!
www.eurolines.it/

I really doubt you can find a single ride. And it will end up taking you more than 5 hours for sure.

Do you have these websites?

http://www.ibus.it/

http://www.bugeurope.com/transport/eurolines.html

You may have to find a way to get to Torino (Turin) from Nice before you can string together bus connections, and you can expect long layovers between buses.

You and your friend might want to see if there are cheap flights from regional airports that would get you within striking distance (ie, a flight from Treviso that took you to Marseilles, or something equally goofy).

Another possibility is to get a bus to Paris, and then to Venice, but it will take a very long time.

By the way, trying to get from Nice into any part of northern Italy is one of the most cumbersome and expensive routes you can take, if if you are willing to spend a lot of money. It's stumps travelers all the time. Any way you can rearrange your itinerary -- or eliminate Nice?

The train fare will not be really expensive and may be the only way to do it really - look for schedules and fares at www.trenitalia.com and put in Ventimiglia as your starting point - due to a snafu between Italian and French railways there are currently i believe no thru trains going across the border - but there are frequent shuttle trains from Nice to Ventimiglia, the Italian border station.

But yes 5.5 hours is way too quick i think no matter how you go.

there used to be an overnight train Nice to Venice but t'was scrapped last year.

Is there still train service from Nice to Milan? From there, you could connect to the local or Eurostar service to Venice.

Surprisingly enough, both mappy.com and googlemaps estimate this trip at 5.5-6 hours.

To drive it yourself in 5-6 hours? Sure. To take a bus that stops in many locations, and when you have to get off at points in between to wait for a different connecting bus? Add several hours.

Eurolines has Nice-Venice bus service on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Buses depart at 04:00 and arrive at 15:45. The fare is €45.

Currently there is no direct train service from Nice to Milan. The fastest route is Nice-Monaco-Ventimiglia-Milano-Venezia Santa Lucia in a bit over nine hours. The best source for detailed timetables is the German Rail site, www.bahn.de.

Wow, so many replies already! Thank you so much. I will forward your suggestions to my friend.