French Riviera Itinerary
 

We have most of our itinerary planned for our French Riviera honeymoon in September 2011, but we have a few questions. Here is what we're planning so far:

Fly into Nice early morning and travel to St. Tropez
Stay 3 nights in St. Tropez

Stay 1 night in Cannes

Stay 7 Nights in Nice (day trips to Monaco, Eze, St Paul de Vence, etc.)

Stay 1 Night in Villefranche

Stay 1 Night near Nice airport for early morning flight

We're wondering if instead of staying in Cannes right after St. Tropez, should we instead go up to Aix/Avignon/Arles for a night? Is there public transportation from St. Tropez to any of those 3 cities (we prefer not to rent a car)? Of those 3 cities, which do you recommend? Is there a good train route from those cities to Nice?

Cannes and Villefranche are trivial day trips from Nice. Do you really want to move around for one night stays? If you can consolidate your stay in Nice in one piece, you would save .5+ days in the process. I have done Eze Village + Monaco as an easy day trip from Nice. If you bother going to Provence, why not stay there longer than just one night? Whether you really want a Riviera honeymoon or a Riviera + Provence honeymoon, staying in Provence for just one night seems be a hassle with little benefit.

I agree w/greg that you could just as easily do day trips to Cannes and Villefranche from Nice. Villefranche is practically an extension of Nice. I would perhaps take a couple of those days you'll save and spend them in Aix or one of the other towns in Provence. My other observation of your itinerary would be that 3 nights in St Tropez might be a bit much. It's a small place with limited things to do. But if you want to just relax then perhaps it would work. If I recall correctly public transportation to and from St Tropez is rather limited, but perhaps someone else could give you better info. When we've been there we've just driven from Nice.
Congrats and have a great trip!

The airport is very close to the center of Nice. No need to change hotels (assuming you won't be in Villefrance the night before.)Stay in Nice.

Thanks for the replies so far. I totally agree Cannes and Villefranche are easy day trips, but here's our reasoning. For our 7 nights in Nice, we're staying in Old Town which will be great, but no sea view. The reason we want to stay in Villefranche for a night is to stay at Hotel Welcome with a sea view room. For Cannes, we've heard great things about Le Cavendish and wanted to get a feel for Cannes at night, rather than just a day trip. We haven't booked either hotel yet, so we're open to suggestions, but that was our original reasoning.

I also agree 3 nights in St. Tropez is normally too much, but we just want a relaxing beach atmosphere for the first few days. We are hoping there is at least public transportation to Grimaud, Ramatuelle, Gassin, etc. but does anyone know if this is true?

We'd consider taking 1 of the nights off of St. Tropez and using it elsewhere (Provence maybe?). Is the trip to Provence for 2 nights worth it, or still too short?

Is there any other towns along the coast that have reasonable sea view hotels that would be worth a stay? Any other ideas? Thanks!

bus 7705 [or 7703] ramatuelle/st tropez
bus 7601 grimaud/st tropez
bus 7703 - very few buses per day gassin/st tropez

get timetables here
http://www.varlib.fr/

Hi Jacandy,

We are getting married in Sept this year and are thinking to visit french riviera for our honeymoon as well. As you can see we are running a bit short on time to plan our visit so I was wondering if you would mind sharing your finalized itinerary. our email is [email protected]. Much appreciated!