Nice is the base. The coast is the day out.
Which Monaco half-day actually stops in Monte-Carlo. Whether the Lérins ferry beats the Estérel boat. What an hour at a Grasse blending bench costs. The order comes from people who have already spent the day doing it.
Nice is half an hour from everywhere worth going.
A principality, a monastery island, a perfume town and four medieval villages, all within a coach morning or a train ride of the Promenade. Each one sells a completely different day.
In Nice, the most-booked day trip is not in Nice.
Every review →Ordered by how many travellers have actually been and said so afterwards, and priced from the cheapest seat on each.
1
Eze, Monaco, & Monte-Carlo Half-Day Trip
Half-day trip from Nice to Eze, Monaco, Monte-Carlo, with Fragonard perfume, palace views, and a Formula 1 circuit drive.
From · $42
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2
French Riviera in One Day
from $85
3
1-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche Bay
from $33
4
1 or 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $28
5
Monte Carlo Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $29
6
Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender Tour
from $125
7
Round-Trip Ferry to Ste. Marguerite Island
from $24
8
Walking Tour of Old Nice and Castle Hill
from $39
You can see the entire Riviera in a day. It is a long day.
All whole-coast days →
Nine hours, one coach, six towns: Èze for the village, Monaco for the palace square, Monte-Carlo for the casino terrace, then Cannes, Antibes and Saint-Paul on the way back. It is the itinerary most first visits end up buying, and the whole difference between a good one and a bad one is how long you spend out of the vehicle.
East as far as Monte-Carlo
The short version of the corniche: the perched village, the palace square at the changing of the guard, the casino terrace and the harbour. You are back on the Cours Saleya by evening.
Both directions in one sweep
East for Monaco and Èze, west for Cannes, Antibes and Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Six towns, one seat, and the three corniche roads in between.
Up to the gorge and the lavender
Europe’s deepest canyon and the lavender plateaus above it, a few hours north of the beach. The purple is only up for a few weeks either side of July; the turquoise water in the gorge is there all summer.
Monaco is twenty minutes away and another country.
Two square kilometres of palace, casino, superyachts and a Formula 1 circuit that is just the street plan with barriers bolted to it. Most people give it half a day. The ones who stay until dark see it lit.
The Riviera is a single train line with a different town at every stop.
Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Villefranche, Èze-sur-Mer, Monaco, Menton — all on the same coastal railway, none of them more than forty minutes from Nice-Ville. One catch worth knowing before you plan around it: the Èze station is at sea level and the village is four hundred metres above it, so that stop needs the bus or a tour.
NiceThe clear water starts one bay east of Nice.
Villefranche sits in the deepest natural harbour on the coast and the snorkelling boats have known it for decades. Beyond it: the Mala caves under Cap d’Ail, the Lérins islands off Cannes, and the red rock of the Estérel calanques an hour west.
The cheapest thing on this coast is a museum ticket. The dearest is a car and a driver.
Every published review, bucketed by the lowest price its operator lists. The spread is wider than most people expect.
Old-town walks, bar crawls, ferry tickets, museum entries and the shorter perfume workshops.
The shared coach days — Monaco and Èze, the whole-coast sweep, Saint-Tropez, the Provençal vineyards.
Private drivers, chartered boats and the helicopter hop over to Monaco: a day built entirely around you.
Perfume, motor racing and three roads stacked up one cliff.
Beaches and old towns run the length of the Mediterranean. These three belong to the sixty kilometres between Cannes and the Italian border, and every one of them fits inside an afternoon.
Grasse
Grasse turned a medieval glove-tanning trade into the perfume industry because the hills behind it grow jasmine, rose and tuberose. Three houses — Fragonard, Molinard and Galimard — still run their factories as visitor workshops, and you come out with a bottle you blended at the bench and a formula number so you can order it again. Forty minutes inland, entirely indoors, and it runs whatever the sky is doing.
- 1Monaco & Eze Small-Group Day Trip with Perfumery Visit from Nice★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 847 reviews
- 2Fragonard Eze: Perfume Making Class and Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 743 reviews
- 3Perfume Making Class and Fragonard Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 684 reviews
The Street Circuit
The Monaco Grand Prix circuit is not a track. It is Boulevard Albert 1er, the tunnel under the Fairmont hairpin and the quay along Port Hercule, closed for one weekend in late May and full of ordinary traffic for the rest of the year. Walking guides take you round it at pavement pace. The grandstands and barriers go up weeks in advance and come down slowly, so what you see depends on when you land.
- 1Eze, Monaco, & Monte-Carlo Half-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,642 reviews
- 2Monte Carlo Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,447 reviews
- 3Monaco, Monte-Carlo and Eze Village Small Group Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,129 reviews
The Corniches
Between Nice and Monaco the mountain drops straight into the sea, so the road had to be built three times over. The Basse Corniche runs along the water through Villefranche and Beaulieu; the Moyenne cuts across halfway up and passes under Èze; the Grande follows the ridge, where Napoleon put it on top of the Roman road. Most day tours take one out and another back. The Grande has the view, the Basse has the villages.
- 11-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,747 reviews
- 2Mala Caves, Villefranche & Snorkeling Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 531 reviews
- 3Snorkeling Speedboat Tour in Villefranche Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 448 reviews
Some of this coast runs on a calendar rather than on your plans.
Most of the Riviera can be booked from your hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on a race weekend, a flowering season, a summer-only timetable and studios that seat about a dozen.
- 01Monaco Formula 1 Walking Tour – The Inside Track Monaco F1The circuit is public road all year, but grandstands, barriers and road closures arrive weeks before the late-May race weekend — and every bed from Nice to Menton goes with them.
- 02Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender TourThe plateaus flower for a few weeks either side of July. Book outside that window and you have booked a long drive to a green field.
- 03Discovery Perfume WorkshopThe Grasse blending studios work in benches of roughly a dozen people. Weekend slots go first, and the factory tours run to a fixed timetable.
- 04Nice to St Tropez Ferry Ticket and CruiseThe Saint-Tropez boat is a summer service and it answers to the sea. A mistral can cancel the crossing on the morning, and out of season it does not run at all.
Nice tastes more Italian than French, and the menu admits it.
Socca off a copper pan, pissaladière by the slice, pan-bagnat wrapped in paper for the beach. The old town belonged to Savoy until 1860 and its kitchen never fully changed sides. The Cours Saleya runs flowers and produce Tuesday to Sunday; on Monday the same stalls sell antiques instead.
- 1Walking Tour of Old Nice and Castle Hillfrom $39
- 2NO DIET CLUB – Unique Local Food in Nice !from $81
- 3Nice Old Town and Castle Hill: Guided Cultural Walking Tourfrom $30
By where it goes
Monaco & Monte-Carlo163 tours
Cannes & the Lérins152 tours
Èze Village100 tours
The Hilltop Villages50 tours
Grasse43 tours
Antibes & Juan-les-Pins53 tours
Villefranche & Cap Ferrat44 tours
Menton & the Border21 tours
Saint-Tropez20 tours
The Verdon & the Lavender20 tours
Provence42 tours- Every tour on the coast →
By what kind of day it is
Newly reviewed, Cannes to Menton.
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Cannes, Antibes and St-Paul-de-Vence Full-Day from Villefranche Small group tour
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The best French Riviera Full-day from Villefranche Small-Group Shore Excursion
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Shore Excursion: Half-Day In Monaco, Monte Carlo & Eze
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Villefranche Shore Excursion: Private Day Trip to Nice Eze Villefranche La Turbie and Monaco
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Villefranche Shore Excursion: 6 hrs Private Tour Eze and Monaco
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Shore excursion to Nice Eze Monaco Monte Carlo from Villefranche
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Private excursion from Villefranche in Citroën Méhari to Eze and Monaco
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Private Customized French Riviera Tour from Port Villefranche 6H
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Private Customized French Riviera Tour from Port Villefranche 8H
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