Where to stay on the French riviera
 

We have 7 days to work with and will stay in Nice for half the time. Any suggestions for other close cities we should consider for 3 nights. We will not have a car. Villefranche-sur-Mer for instance? We fly out of Nice airport. would love to have a great Riviera experience.

I would pick St Tropez for a magical riviera experience assuming it's not July or August.
You can take the 9 am boat from Nice to St Tropez(2hr30min):
http://www.trans-cote-azur.co.uk/nice-saint-tropez.php
or the 3 hour bus ride from the Nice airport to St Raphael where you need to transfer to the bus for St Tropez.

Villefranche is charming and in a good location to tour the area. We also like Antibes for a base.

While St. Tropez is beautiful, it is very far from everything else. And it has little/no public transportation. We stay in Villefranche which has easy bus and local train access to Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Cap Ferrat, Eze, and Monte Carlo.

Why no car for 7 days?? Lots of neat places to go & see by car. The Nice Hinterland is breathtaking.

I agree with Casey about St Tropez - much better with a car so you can explore elsewhere mid-day when lots of day-trippers clog the streets of St Tropez from May through Sept. Also, more than 2 nights there without a car would probably be too long.

You could also stay in St Paul - but you would need a car there also.

Stu Dudley

We have based in Menton and Aix and enjoyed them both immensely. Our Menton Hotel (Princess et Richmond) offered van tours to various area spots of interest. A bus stop was across the street and we took it to Nice for 1 euro each! Expect it would be crowded in summer. A long walk to the old town but along the seawalk in summer wouldn't be a problem.

Our Aix hotel (Aquabella) had a pool heated by thermal springs, a restaurant and van tours could be booked from the hotel. We were a short walk from 2 wonderful squares/market.

What did you have in mind to do??

I agree St Tropez is not ideal for touring as a base. I was thinking that moki could do all the tourism from Nice and might then be ready for a memorable taste of the beach life with a perfect old town square and alleys. We stayed 2 nights in St Tropez in May and were never bored for one minute, plenty of great restaurants and clubs, bacci ball in the square, endless shops, people watching and what we also enjoyed was visiting the different boat owners during their open house all along the port in the early evenings.