I land in Nice with time before my ship departs. Can anyone reccomend a pharmacy where I can get some antibiotic/cipro (i like to have handy incase I eat something bad or catch a bug on the ship) and some sea/sick medication before boarding my cruise? I have been busy here in the states and was told it was easy enough to pickup in France. I would love to go directly to the pharmacy and then the ship and not waste the time of looking for one. Thank you in advance.

There are hundreds of pharmacies in Nice.Don't know about antibiotics without a prescription though.I would doubt it. The French are much more into natural medicine/homeopathy etc than the US.

Look for the green crosses on buildings. They are usually above the door and are neon signs that stick out from the building so you can see them from down the street.

These represent pharmacies and there seems to be one on every corner in the major cities. I know. I think I visited most of them on our last trip to Italy (Rome, Venice, and Capri). They are very helpful and accomodating to tourists and made what could have been a bad situation managable for me on our last trip.

It would be best to fill your prescriptions ahead of your trip and bring them with you. But if that's impossible for some reason, there is a very good pharmacy that we've used quite often just two stores in from the corner of RUE MEYERBEER and PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS.

This pharmacy would be about a 10 minute drive from the port depending on traffic, but I'm sure there are others much closer to where you disembark.

Pharmacists in France have considerably more latitude in issuing medications than do their U.S. counterparts. You can certainly get sea-sick medication and possibly some antibiotics, but I doubt that would include cipro. Does your cruise ship not have a doctor?

if i were you and if money is an object, i would make time to pick this up before you leave home. who needs the hassle of it all and it can be quite expensive. i would rather be seeing Nice than running around looking for this stuff and trying to figure out which meds are like the ones you take at home.

referring to another suggestion, using the ship's doctor on a cruise is very expensive from what i hear.

I do not think you can get antibiotics without prescription in France. My experience is they are quite strict in this.

Thank you all for your helpful advice.
I will try to take care of before I leave but it is nice to know there are options (thank you Dejais & Weadles). I tend to stay away from ship dr.'s..On my last trip I couldn't get rid of the guy and he was a nussance for the rest of the cruise. I try to stay as independent as possible. Thank you again, Jane

Hi
If you need to get antibiotics in Europe,know the actual generic name of the medication. Some medications are known by different names in Europe.

The more I think about this, the more I think you should try to make time for getting the prescriptions before you go. It's possible that some pharmacies would have to order what you need, and then you'd be completely out of luck.