My friend and I are flying into Paris, and we have about 6 days before our flight out. Shes never seen Paris, but I have, so we are thinking of doing 3 days in Paris, and 3 elsewhere in France. I would love to check out Provence, which Ive heard is beautiful, but she wants to do the French Riviera, to sit on peaceful beaches and relax. Can you please help us decide? Pros and cons of each? What would be a good town to pick in the Riviera? Ive been to Nice, and was not enchanted- are other towns nicer? Please help- thanks!!

When are you going?

JoeG

We're going at the end of June

I know this is partly personal preference and values, but it sounds like your friend is a little nutty. Why go all the way to France just to hang out on a beach? You can do that a lot of places more cheaply, and better, because the beaches down there are not that nice unless you have a private beach or until you are west of Marseille, for the most part. They aren't peaceful and relaxing, either.

This is also a matter of personal taste because I'm not a fan of the Riviera, but it's certainly true the beaches aren't peaceful.
Do you also want to spend your entire three days relaxing? If so, I don't suppose it really matters where you go. But if you are interested in seeing some of the myriad offerings of the south of France, and you don't have a car, you'll probably need to pick a fairly large town. Maybe you should go to Montpellier. Your friend can go to the beach and you can enjoy that vibrant city. Or Arles (she could go to the municipal swimming pool .

Let's look at those 3 days. Getting from Paris to Provence (of which the Riviera/aka Côte d'Azur is part) will take you about half a day, as will the return trip. You will then be left with just 2 days to do much of anything, which isn't really much time at all. Why don't you consider a resort town closer to Paris, such as Deauville (in Normandy) or Dinard (in Brittany)? They're very popular with the French and easy to reach by train from Paris.

The French Riviera always brings to mind beautiful sandy beaches with swaying palm trees, but in fact the beaches are mostly pebbles. There are, however, a few good ones, such as in Cannes and the small public beach in Juan les Pins. If you flew from Paris to Nice you could spend 2 days basking on one or both of those beaches, but you wouldn't be able to do much else because of time constraints.

I hate to tell you that you are a victim of the US view on vacation that it is a negative. You are restricted to a few days each year to spend your time relaxing and rejuvenating. Hence, you have a few days to do what the Europeans take a week to do. There is no right answer, therefore, to your question. Take the time to enjoy Paris, take the time to enjoy Proence, including the Côte D'Azure. Also, take the time to enjoy Paris. I'm afraid that you will have to take two trips to do both. There is really no way to seperate them. How would you differentiate the taste of your favorite main course from the taste of your favorite dessrt? You cannot- they are both tastes but they are both in seperate categories.

My recommendation is to do one to its fullest and resolve to go do the other later.

Agree with Underhill. With 6 days and landing in Paris I would ditch the Riviera and go to Normandy or Brittany. The region is loaded with very scenic, quaint villages with much French flavor.

Me personally would spend the 6 days soaking up Paris, and save other areas for other times.