scrb
As far as parking is concerned, it depends on the season of the year. If it is during the vacation season, starting from tomorrow and finishing mi september, i am afraid that you already can forget driving to Eze. First choice you drive to the village by the "middle corniche" and i can bet you won't park your car except when arriving at 7 in the morning.. Second choice, you drive to Eze sea side where i live and there is no parking possibilities except at the same hour of the morning because there are many people going to the beach. You must pay to park your car and pay to board the shuttle bus going up and down to and from the village. Or you can walk up the Nietzche path,if in summer, you won't forget it because of the temperature....
Same for St Jean Cap Ferrat (Rothchild house) in summertime, it is really the mess for traffic and parking.
I am afraid that there are, to my knowledge, NOT any supermarkets open on sundays. If it is for food only , i suppose that in Villefranche sur mer, there is a "Champion" supermarket opened of sunday mornings from 9 to 12.

If your plans are for a fall or winter visit, all will become very easy and you will enjoy this wonderful area.

PS : In and out Monaco during rush hours
around 8am and 6 pm the trafic is more or less blocked. Times have changed...in 10 years time. Actually, the whole Nice to Menton, inclusive of the motorways, is the same as far as traffic is concerned in summer time.

Eze confirms the center of Nice is still torn up for the subway? tram? being built. So that makes Nice a difficult place to make daytrips by car from.

scrb was referring to the Train des Pignes, which travels north into the hills above Nice. Here's a link: www.provencebeyond.com/travel/railpignes.html. Entrevaux makes a good turn-around point for a one-day excursion. This ride, which I keep wanting to take, is supposed to be quite scenic.

Yes Until fall at best, avoid driving in Nice if you don't have a good knowledge of the city map.
Yes there is a train linking Nice to Digne whose name is Train des Pignes. Aged machines (may be forty years old) but rather amazing. Yes, scenic but you have to wait twenty or more kms to see something scenic. This train pass through a good part of the city of Nice, and follows Var river for a quite a long moment. It is only after

sorry (fat finger !)
it is only after Plan du Var that the scenic part begins. Actually, the northern you go, the more scenic it becomes, specially between Annot and Digne.

Thanks again Eze. I chose to stay in Cannes instead of Nice, where I've stayed a couple of times before.

Another trip I wanted to take was St. Tropez but I hear the parking situation is particularly bad, especially near the beaches?

Hmm, but 7 AM to find parking? I could do that but then is there anything open at that hour? Does the tram to Eze run that early? And of course, once you get up, is there anything open?

Plus if it's metered parking, then you're waiting and paying for parking the car.

Another place I'm going to try to get to, which I couldn't before, is Gorges du Verdon.

Scrb

Of course, Cannes is a good choice, depending which part of Cannes you stay.
We, locals, find quite strange that people insist in going to ST in summer months as, it takes hours (by road) to drive the last five or six kilometers, hours to get a parking lot for your car, it s very very hot (weather...)etc..
If your interest is, among others as i perceived it in an other of your threads, to enjoy the "advantages" of the sandy beaches of Pampelune for instance, i suggest that from Cannes you go to Juan les Pins where you will find mostly the same "attractions" and enjoy a very "rich" nightlife. In one word, forget ST in july/august period.
As far as Eze is concerned, pse take public buses. There is a bus (line 82) from Gare routière in Nice going to Eze plateau de la justice. You step down the bus at Eze Village. Less polution, less headache for yourself.
Enjoy .

Thanks Eze for looking into it.

I know from personal experience that driving on the N98 is always a nightmare, irrespective of the season.

I was exploring the idea of train travel from St Tropez or a nearby town to Menton as an alternative way of transport. Afterall one can also see and enjoy the scenery of the coastline.

s

Anyone venture as far as Portofino from Nice/Cannes?

121 miles but probably a lot of crowded slow roads.

From Fréjus/St Raphael to Menton by train, it s possible but rather a long trip, as you should change at least once in Nice station.
Cannes/ Nice to Portofino during the summer period, following the sea side will take a whole day. Rent a car and drive the motorway till after Genova.
And don't forget you money as you ll have to spend a lot in Portofino as you will be lost among wealthy italian people (or russian) who are ready to spend millions for nothing...

Motorway as in a faster inland route rather than the coastal road?

Aren't a lot of autoroutes toll roads? At least in Provence and Cote d'Azur they were.

90 % of french and italian autoroutes are toll road. Those on which, in France, you are not requested to pay are those which are occupying the former national road space and as the State has no choice to offer between autoroute and "national road" it doesn't charge any toll.
Example Vierzon (Cher) to Limoges A20

Don't even try driving on a coastal road in the summer. We had to get off - it was too crowded ( in early May) The highway is a toll road and not cheap but much faster. One down side of the highway - many , many tunnels!

sorry,
if you are driving towards Portofino

Rite, that is why, we, poor people living in this wonderful paradise do not dare to drive when people go to and come back from the beach and also in some places by night as Antibes juan les pins and St Tropez...

Some guides recommend parking in Santa Margherita and taking the bus into Portofino.

Not sure I will do it though, because there are plenty of places within Provence and CdA.

But it's interesting that tour companies take people to Ventimiglia and the guides are saying Ventimiglia is unremarkable. Close to Nice/Cannes but unremarkable.

If Italian Riviera del Levante is your center of interest, forget Santa Margharita Ligure and Portofino, and drive a little lfarther to Cinqueterre. Unforgetable. Check with maquest or mappy. I would say 250/280 kms away from the french border. There you can spend three days at least without having made half of what is proposed (scenic walks, good food, etc..) Of course, it is as overcrowed as the rest of touristic places in italy, but worth the trip !
Ventimiglia offers nothing to a tourist, a part from the market already mentioned on a recent post.
I am really amazed that there can be tourists with guides and buses willing to go there. If i had a day to spend in this border close area, i would drive (motorway) to Bordighera that is something like 20 kms from the border, a little snobbish place, but having a very nice uphill village (old town) and a wonderful and long passegiata along the seaside.

It's not that it's necessarily my interest. It's that I've been to the Côte d'Azur before whereas I haven't been to that part of Italy and it seems within reach with a car.

I've been to the Fondation Maeght more than once. Do I need to go again or see other museums like Leger for instance?

Do I need to see Monaco and Menton again or should I consider going further east?

That sort of thing.

A 3-day trip out of Cannes is out. It would have to be a day trip.

But I will file away the info about CT, Bordighera (where I may end up going along with San Remo).

OK, my last night in Cannes.

I did cover a lot of ground but not nearly as much as I thought about.

What killed me was going to Verdon, Lac Ste. Croix. Lot of winding, narrow roads and it wore me down. My GPS showed close distances as the crow flies but once it calculates the roads, it was infinitely farther.

But spectacular views.

I didn't try St. Tropez and I considered taking a train but looks like on the sncf site, I could get to St. Raphael but not to St. Tropez from Cannes.

I also did make it to Eze village, arriving around 9:30 in the morning. Parking wasn't too bad but when I left a couple of hours later, then spaces were tighter. So it's do-able if you drive up early but the only downside of course is that it may be more hazy early in the morning.