Traffic concern: boat or car from Nice to St. Tropez??
 

My husband and I will be making a day trip at the very end of August from Nice to St.Tropez. After reading several guidebooks, I am getting a bit concerned around the potential traffic situation/parking lot senario being described.

Most say the traffic is the worse in July and August- does this pertain to the last weekend of August as well I imagine?

I noticed that you can get to St. Tropez via boat from Nice as well. Has anyone done this?

We will be renting a car and we enjoy stopping off at other towns en route to our destination. Will we be missing much if we take the boat from Nice vs. the car??

Any feedback/help would be very much appreciated... want to make the most of the 1 day we will have to do this... Thanks!

You could drive as far as Ste-Maxime and take a boat from there--that would allow you to see the picturesque Esterel Coast, along with any towns you want to visit.

Thanks for the suggestion! Any idea how far Ste-Maxime is via car from Nice?

Go to mappy.com or viamichelin.com to get estimates of driving distance and time, then add an extra 10% to be on the safe side.

driving between Cannes and St. Tropez can be an absolute parking lot--with no place to park--we had to give up finally --as the traffic was at a standstill and it was very crowded so we lost interest. I believe it was during the film festival which may have accounted for at least some of the traffic.

That's what I am afraid of.. we have such limited time, I don't want to spend that time sitting in traffic... any other suggestions? Does anyone know if that last week of August is typically as crowded as the rest of the summer? Guess I am used to crowds thinning out later in the summer..

I just looked up ferries from Nice and from Cannes to St. Tropez.. from the site, it looks like it leaves Cannes daily at 9 am and 10:15 am with a return at 5:45pm... I was not really wanting to be on such a limited time schedule if I could avoid it (one reason why we rented a car)... does anyone know about the ferry system there? Is there more than one "shuttle" service? I would have thought the to/from returns would have had a bit more times coming and going??? Help!

I'm sorry to say that the last week of August can be very, very bad, as it's the end of most Europeans' summer vacation and people begin heading home.

Taking the boat from Ste-Maxime is probably the quickest way to do what you want. Go over to tripadvisor.com to see more information--there's a poster there who really knows the area.

Thank you- will check it out!

ttt