I will be in Nice, France in Feb. 2007. Any suggestions for restaurants, stores, clubs, tourist spots, tourists traps, little unknowns, "must dos", etc? It will be my mom and godmother (in their 50's) and my sister and I (in our lste 20's).

Day trip ideas? We also thought we should try Monaco? Thoughts?

Monaco is very easy and cheap to get to. There is a regular bus service at fairly good frequency, and the route is lovely (better than the train). It's not a terribly interesting place, though, and half a day was more than enough for me. If you are into Grand Prix racing, you might last longer than that.

For a really good outing, see http://www.beyond.fr/travel/railpignes.html
The views are spectacular.

My trip report: http://www.iol.ie/~draoi/html/nice1.htm (copy and paste to get the full url).

Nice is one of my favorite places. You can do an easy half day trip by bus to St. Paul de Vence, a picture perfect hilltown not far from Nice. La Colombe D'Or is a famous restaurant there, if that interests you. Also nearby is the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, an art-filled palace and garden overlooking the sea in Cap Ferrat. Also an easy bus ride away. Within Nice, I would suggest you go to the suburb of Cimiez and see the monastery and church and park which are there, with great views of the city. Also the Chagall museum, if that interests you. Of course you must visit the Cours Saleya, the flower market, and the old town, all in central Nice. There is a great cafe/bar across from the St. Reparate cathedral that I love to sit at, and mass at the cathedral itself (lovely music, even if you're not Catholic). I would never miss the Aliziari Olive Oil shop and pick myself up a can of this stuff which must be tasted to be believed.

Monaco, so I hear (and photos corroborate), is a town of densely packed high-rises that has dissapointed many. Unless there is something specific you want to see there, I might rethink that one.

An easy bus or train ride away is the town of Antibes. A great old town. Just down the road from Antibes is Juan les Pins where I rented a bicycle and biked the Cap d'Antibes to the lovely Chapel of la Garoupe and enjoyed views of the sea and the villas that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald and his crew.

My wife & I have been to Monaco 3 times(we have friends who live there), we used to refer to it jokingly as the Hongkong of France, but after a few stays it grew on us. It is not Provence by any means as it is built up and ritzy but it is still French. It has a nice harbor (La Condamine) and a public beach off Avenue Princess Grace. The casino area is one place to gawk, it has nice views when you walk towards the waterside and there is a large 3 story underground shopping center besides the many stores above ground. Other people watch the Palace's changing of the guards and the steep botanical garden. It's not a typical or higly recommendable Provence destination but it may give you a nice contrast in Cote d"azur.

Hi DMetriss,
If you are already in Nice, you should try to visit Monaco. The drive from Nice to Monaco is so beautiful, I suggest renting a car in NIce early in the morning and drive up to Monaco stopping at every little village along the way and then spent the rest of the day in Monaco. Have a great trip.

I agree with seall, but make sure you drive the corniche moyenne route which will give you the view and a stop at Eze(must see). The corniche basse will take you to St Jean Cap Ferrat & Villefranche (must see) but you have to be careful what time of day as traffic can be bumper to bumper. The basse route doesn't give you the dramatic view as the moyenne route.

A good guidebook would really help you also.

I pooh-poohed the idea of going to visit Monaco last summer when my daughter wanted to go there one afternoon.
However, we decided at the last moment as we were getting off the train from Cannes to go to St. Paul De Vence(Cannes, by the way, is a WONDERFUL LOCATION FOR A BASE - the sandy beach alone, along with the boardwalk in the evening is comparable to anything we experienced in the Riviera) to stay on the train and to go all the way to Monaco.
It may have been our favourite day of a 5-day stay in the Riviera.

The palace tour was easy, quick and interesting with the eeasy-to-use earphones, and the Napoleonic museum was very informative.

The absolute high-light, however, was the marine museum, which had been begun approx. 100 years ago, and which had been over-seen by Jacques Cousteau for 17 years. It was unbelievable - I sat in front of the various exhibits for unbelievable amounts of time, absolutely mesmerized by what I was looking at.

Do yourself a favour and go- it may well turn out, for you, like me, to be one of the unexpected highlights of your Riviera stay.

Nice is a great place to visit, and has wonderful opportunities for day-trips. Here's my trip report from this past May, with my daughter:

"Nice, three nights in May, 2006

We arrived in Nice in the early afternoon on Friday, via train from Santa Margherita Ligure. Our Hotel le Grimaldi (http://www.le-grimaldi.com/) was a short cab ride from the train station, 10 EUR for myself, my daughter, my gargantuan bag, and her two small ones. We were greeted graciously at the hotel, which immediately struck us as a good find.

The hotel is actually two Belle Epoque buildings back-to-back. One side is much prettier to enter, as it faces a nice church. The other side is fine, too, but a bit boring. I think the side on rue Grimaldi is the plain one, and the other side on rue Maccarani is prettier.

The man at the front desk carried my bag to the room, and showed us around. There’s a business center on the ground floor, with free internet use on their two computers, and a free printer to use. (Also wi-fi in the lobby, I think for a fee.)

Our room was a ‘classic’, twin-bedded room, which was quite large (for Europe), had a little balcony, a sparkling yellow and white tile bath with fluffy bright yellow towels, and nice toiletries. It was 150 EUR plus tax, and 10 EUR per person if we opted for the hot/cold breakfast buffet. They suggested we check out the buffet served till 10:30a.m. the next morning, and if we were interested we could sign on for it. The deal is that you have to buy it everyday to get the 10 EUR rate. Otherwise, per day, it’s 15 EUR per person.

So the next morning, we were happy to find hot eggs, proscuitto, yoghurts, cereals, cappuccino, assorted croissants, juices, etc. We thought it a good deal and quite convenient, so we enjoyed it each morning.


It's an easy walk to the train station (w/o luggage) from Le Grimaldi, and a slightly longer walk to the bus station. Easy walk of a few blocks to the grand promenade at seaside, just past the pedestrian zone. Also not far walking to Vieux Nice. The neighborhood felt perfectly safe, and we walked back to the hotel late each night.

For our first dinner, I had brought the name of a restaurant I’d found on Travel Talk, and the front desk agreed it was a good one, a local favorite in old Nice. It’s called Acchiardo, at 38 rue Droite in Vieux Nice. We headed over for their opening at 7 p.m., and were very happy with it. Really friendly and attentive service, very quaint and casual atmosphere, with a good menu. I had a steak dinner, which actually included vegetables on the side. My daughter had two different salads. We had bottled water and a half-liter of house red wine. When the bill arrived for 28.50EUR, I thought they’d made a mistake because it was so much less than I’d been accustomed to paying in Venice, Florence and Rome. But, no, it was correct. (We would have maybe eaten there another night, but found out it closes on weekend nights, believe it or not.)

We walked all over old Nice, then through the pedestian area to the promenade and took that way back to the hotel. It’s such a beautiful walk at night. The Chateau hillside is all lit up, the palm trees are lit, and the waves look so pleasant. It was how we ended each of our Nice nights, with that walk back to the hotel.

The next day we decided to take the short bus ride on the #81, to visit the Villa and Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild, near Saint Jean Cap Ferrat. (The bus is just 1.30EUR each direction, which you pay in exact change on the bus.) We didn't stop to see the Greek Villa, but it's also on that same bus route, near the Ephrussi. You can easily catch the #81 for your return trip to Nice, at any stop along the road.

It was a nice visit, especially to see the views of the sea down below on both sides of the hillside. I thought the price was a bit steep, at 9.50EUR for an adult, because the Villa isn’t really all that interesting (sorry!), but the gardens are pretty. There’s also a nice little café there, for a light snack or drink or meal, which was a welcome break from all our walking.

While we were there, a very strong wind came up, which caused quite a bit of white caps in the water below, and chased everyone in from the patio tables. The wind stayed with us for the rest of the day, but wasn’t terribly annoying.

From the Villa, we did the easy walk down to the port of St. Jean to walk around and check it out. There are nice boats in the little harbor, with cute restaurants and shops. It’s very tiny, so doesn’t take long to walk from end to end of St. Jean. We spent just about an hour and a half there, then caught the #81 back to Nice.

That evening, we returned to old Nice for dinner. We loved that neighborhood’s little streets, overall atmosphere, and cute shops. We found the Restaurant la Tapenada, 6 rue St. Reparate and had a very nice dinner. It was probably about 60EUR for the two of us, on their fixed price menu, with a bottle of house wine. Very nice little place, with friendly and attentive service. They even let my daughter trade her dessert for a salad. So she had two salads to start, one after the other, and they timed the arrival of our main courses perfectly. We were completely happy with our meal there.

The next day we decided we’d stick to the coast and see Antibes, which is a short 20-minute train ride from Nice. We were glad we’d chosen Antibes, as it’s beautiful. The sea wall makes a nice walk, and the Centre Ville is very charming.

We wandered its streets, shopped in a tiny clothing boutique, found a little place for omelettes (nothing special, but nice enough), then headed back to Nice by train after about four hours total. It was a good choice for a quick day-trip.

That evening we weren’t very hungry, so opted for the simple Pasta Basta, once again in old Nice. It was a nice meal, although not extraordinary. Good prices and decent service.

All in all, we were very impressed with Nice and the surrounding area. It’s a very pretty city, with a friendly attitude, sitting on a lovely shore. There are many options for things to do near Nice. We’d considered St. Paul de Vence and Digne, but with the beautiful clear weather, we were drawn to stay at the seaside, and were glad we did."
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Hello Maureen,
I enjoyed reading your report. It sounds like you're so happy just to be in Cote d'Azur that you were excited no matter which town you're in. You're wise to enjoy yourself with whatever is already in front of you/nearby instead of running around chasing all the "must sees". That's how we always travel and we find it much more enjoyable than checking off all the popular tourist attractions on the list. I've visited Cote d"Azur 4 times and each time discovered hidden pleasures of our own as we savored one place at a time.