52 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Visiting Nice, France

I just spent over a month living in Nice, France and exploring the French Riviera, but there are some things that I wish I had known before visiting, so I'm going to share all that with you today. There's a lot to cover, but I'm going to tell you some general tips that you're going to want to be aware of. I'm going to tell you how you can save some money on your trip. I'm going to talk about some cultural differences that you're probably going to want to know about. I'm going to talk about some of the foods that you're going to want to try and where you can actually test them out. I'm going to talk about where you'll actually want to base yourself depending on the type of trip that you're looking for. I'm going to talk about some of the best and worst day trips and how you can avoid some common mistakes there. And of course, I'm going to screw up some French words because I don't speak French. So if you do and you want to tell me how many French words I've mispronounced, you can leave it in the comment section down below. Sorry in advance about that. The first thing to know is that Nice really is a great place to base yourself in the French Riviera. You're going to have great access to a bunch of other places which we'll talk about when we discuss some of the day trips, but also the airport is really accessible. It's close to downtown and it's a breeze. So don't worry about that. The second thing that you're going to want to keep in mind is that while their beaches are absolutely beautiful, they do not have sand. No, these are rocky beaches, but there is a perk to that. And the perk is the sound. The sound for some reason when the rocks are getting pulled back by the waves, they kind of topple over one another and create this beautiful sound that I just haven't heard on any other beach. It's really peaceful, definitely something that you'll appreciate. If you are somebody who needs the sandy beaches, don't worry, there are some places that you can get to. They're a little bit further outside of Nice, but we'll get to those a little bit later on in the video. But you might be asking yourself, do I need a car to get to those other places? And the answer is no, you don't really need a car for this. Nice is a very walkable city and it's probably the best way to actually see it. And you'll notice that the culture kind of revolves around the walking. And one of the places that you'll notice that is on the promenade. And the promenade is absolutely gorgeous. You're going to find people walking there at all hours of the day, young and old, it's just the place to be. So definitely make sure you save some time to walk up and down that. But that's not the only place to walk in Nice. You could definitely explore the old town. It is very walkable and a very charming area. You definitely want to make sure you save some time to walk the port. The port is gorgeous. There's tons to look at, beautiful boats, and just wonderful scenery overall. So definitely a great place to walk. You'll also notice that there's a park up on top of the hill. You can't miss it. It's the only park and I'm going to botch this pronunciation. I'm going to look at my computer. Colline des Chateaux? I don't know. It's a beautiful park, great scenery up there. Some of the best views overlooking all of Nice up there. It's a great place to just wander and walk. But while all those are great places to walk, I think the most beautiful place to walk in all of Nice is a place that a lot of tourists end up missing. And it's something called the Coastal Path. It is this pathway that is literally right up against the water. It is absolutely gorgeous. You're walking on these just beautiful rocks. The scenery is just unmatched. So I highly recommend you taking at least one morning to just spend an hour walking up and down the Coastal Path. You're not going to be disappointed. But another place that you definitely should check out is something that tourists typically end up seeing and it's on the Coisselet, which is in the Old Town. It's the open-air markets and they are beautiful, wonderful flowers, great food. It is a spectacular scene. It is a bit touristy, but definitely not something that you should miss out on. Do note that on Mondays, you're not going to have food. Instead, it turns into an antique market, but all other days it will be open and we'll have food. But a couple other important things to note there, definitely make sure that you have a little bit of cash. Most places in Nice, you're never going to need cash, but the market is the one exception. That's because some places only accept cash and other places, even if they do accept card, they might have a minimum payment. So it's just going to be easiest to have some cash on hand. Speaking of cash, let's talk about some of those money-saving tips. So it's first important to note that Uber is a totally fine option here in Nice, but there is a cheaper alternative called Bolt. And Bolt is the exact same thing as Uber. It's just a different app that a lot of other countries around the world have and it's a great option. Typically, it's about 20 to 30% cheaper than Uber. So just download that before your trip. It works in the exact same way. But if you're wanting to save even more money, do note that Nice has wonderful public transportation options. The tram is a great way to get to and from the airport. Typically, an Uber or Bolt is going to cost somewhere between 20 and 30 euro to get to and from the airport from the downtown area. The tram is going to cost just a few bucks. So definitely cheaper option there, but do note that if you are going to take the tram, it is important to validate your ticket. A lot of Americans freak out because they're like, what the heck does this mean validating your ticket? All it means is taking the little payment card that they give you and tapping it on this thing when you get onto the tram. That's all you got to do. It's not a big thing to worry about. Another important thing to note about the trams that kind of trips up tourists sometimes is if you are taking the tram to get back to the airport, don't end up getting on the tram that is called Can Dam. That one will end up getting you close to the airport, but it won't actually take you into the airport terminal. So wait for the tram that actually says it's going to Airport Terminal 1 or 2. That'll save you a lot of time and confusion. One last money-saving tip for you, and that's that most tourists end up making the mistake of thinking that they can only visit Nice and experience the French Riviera in the summer, and that couldn't be further from the truth. If you book in the off-season like we did, we spent the whole month of February here and everything was so much cheaper. Flights were cheaper, accommodation was cheaper. There weren't nearly as many tourists and it was still wonderful. No, you're not going to have as many warm days at the beach, but it was still beautiful weather. We did get in the water a few times and there was still plenty to explore. So definitely don't sleep on those off-season trips if you're looking to save some money. But let's talk about some of those local dishes that you should try in some of the best places in town that I found to eat. Now, while of course you can find wonderful panna troccolats and so many other French pastries all over the country, one thing that is specific to this region is a dish called sacca. And it's a chickpea flour dish that it's tough to describe. You really have to try it for yourself, but it is really, really good. Think of it as kind of a bread with just a little bit extra flavor. You can find it at some of the local markets, but if you do want to try it at a restaurant, there's a place called Chez Pipo that is really popular for it. It's definitely something that you shouldn't miss when you're visiting. But another place that I would highly recommend if you're into coffee, there's a place called Cafe Indian and it is wonderful. I think it's run by a husband and wife. They've got some great products. They really care about coffee and it shows they have some wonderful specialty coffee. They're located in Old Town, so definitely don't miss them if you are looking for specialty coffee in the area. But if you're over near the port and are looking for coffee, there's a cafe called Full Bloom Cafe. It's actually where I got this hat. There are some awesome people, animal-friendly, just a really cool vibe. Definitely check them out. Some great people over there as well. Now, if you're looking for some great dinner spots, I have three recommendations for you. The first is a wonderful Italian joint called La Cucina. The nicest staff. It is family-run. It is a really small, intimate Italian restaurant. Only a couple of tables, but oh my gosh, their food is to die for. We were packed there constantly. Say hello to Leo for me. He is the main waiter running the show. He is spectacular. But do note that there is always a line by about 6 p.m. They don't open till 6.30, but they don't take reservations. So if you are going to get in there, make sure to show up, line up. It is well worth the wait. If you're wanting more of small bites and kind of tapa styles, try a place called Rogue over near the port. A great spot if you're wanting to try small portions of a lot of different things. We had a really good experience there. So I would recommend them. And there's another place called Little Alchemy. I don't know, probably counted on the list of a mispronunciation, but another wonderful place. Definitely need a reservation at that one and probably the good one if you're looking for a fancier night out. You can also do lunch and it's a little bit more casual, but definitely would recommend them. But if you're looking for pastries, I've got two places. I scoured the city looking for what I thought was going to be the best pain au chocolat and I think I found it. It's a little bakery called Jean Marc Bourdonat. I don't know, probably count it as a mispronunciation, but wonderful pain au chocolat, great stuff, really cool place and always packed with locals. But my personal favorite, where I was always going for more of sandwiches and just a variety of breads, all kinds of good things, was a place called Pains et Patisserie Carabesso. I don't know, again, probably count it, but great stuff there, wonderful staff. They were really patient with my terrible French, as you're now seeing. Go and show them some love. They've got some awesome stuff. Now, I'll go over the areas of town that you want to stay in in just a minute, but I want to tell you about some of those cultural differences that you'll probably want to be aware of. And the first one to note is that it's a slower pace of life in Nice and do expect a lot of restaurants and stores to be closed in the early to mid-afternoon range. They'll be open in the morning. They'll take a quick break in the afternoon and then they'll reopen for dinner. So expect that, but also expect that on Sundays, most things are closed and the things that are open are going to close early and that includes grocery stores. So if you're planning on getting anything on a Sunday, make sure you do it realistically before like 2 p.m. because if you wait till after that, you're probably going to be out of luck. Again, I know it can seem inconvenient, but embrace the culture of that slow pace of life and learn to appreciate that side of the culture. Another thing that is a bit harder to appreciate is you'll notice that a lot of stores and restaurants, they just have inaccurate times listed on their websites. I have never gone anywhere on planet Earth where so many times I've walked to a place because it says it's open online and I get there and I'm like, oh man, this place isn't open and they just are really bad at updating their times online. So don't feel discouraged. That is just a reality of living in Nice or at least it was for me. Maybe you can avoid it by just calling the place before walking there. So yeah, hopefully you have better luck than I did and one other really big cultural event that ends up happening actually in February if you're there for one of those off-season trips is the Nice Carnival and it is this huge festival. It basically happens for like two or three weeks and there are parades, there are all kinds of things happening around the city. So if you are going to book around that time, do note that the center of the city is going to be a little bit packed. People get really into it. It is a ticketed event and it is a really unique part of the culture. Definitely something to embrace and learn about. Definitely make sure you check that out. But let's talk about where you should actually base yourself in town depending on the type of trip that you're looking for. So there's a few different areas of town and the first one that a lot of tourists are going to ask about is Old Town. Should I stay in Old Town? And to be honest, short answer is no. Old Town is a beautiful place. It is charming. But in my opinion, you don't really need to stay there because it's really easy to access Old Town from just about everywhere else and there'll be a lot of tourists. Everybody wants to come and see Old Town and the accommodations aren't going to be quite as nice. So don't worry about staying in Old Town itself. The next area you probably want to know about is something called La Carador. Probably mispronounced it. Add it to the list. But this place is really, really attractive for a couple of reasons. One, it's really close to the beaches. It's a little bit more upscale. So there's going to be awesome restaurant shopping. Everything is really close proximity to this place. But because of that, it does come at a premium price. So there are a lot of people that want to be there. You probably will too. But if you're looking to save some money, probably not the place to be. Now the next place is the Old Port and the port is great for a couple of reasons. One, it's not as expensive as the place that I just mentioned. Two, you're going to get a little bit less tourism over in the port. Yes, there will still be tourists, but not quite as many. But you're also going to have closer access to things like the coastal path and some of the more residential areas where tourists just aren't going to wander. But another place is Nice Centre, kind of the center of Nice. And to be honest, there's nothing wrong with this area, but also there's just nothing special about it. It's going to feel kind of commercial. There are going to be plenty of restaurants and shops around, but there's nothing that like stands out to me in this area. Prices are totally fine. Again, nothing wrong with it, but it's probably not the place that I'd be looking to stay if I had the choice. Now the next area is the Quarter of the Musicians and this is actually where I stayed the entire time and I loved it for a few reasons. So this is just to the north of that really fancy-schmancy area and it's a great area for two reasons. One, it provides you easy access to the fancy-schmancy stuff. And it's about a 10-minute walk to the beach. But if you walk the other direction about 10 minutes, you'll find yourself at the main train station. So we felt that the Quarter of Musicians was kind of perfect for allowing the easy day trips, gave us close proximity to everything. But also there weren't a lot of tourists. It did feel pretty residential, but we felt like we could access everything. So it was a great option for us. The one thing I'd note is that while it is definitely cheaper than that fancy-schmancy area, it is not the cheapest area either. If you are looking for kind of the cheapest area that I could realistically see tourists wanting to stay in, it's actually up in the Liberation District, which is to the north of that main train station. And a lot of tourists make the mistake of never venturing up there at all. And I think that's a mistake that people make because it's a really unique area. You can have really great deals on accommodations up there because most people just aren't looking to stay up there. There are some wonderful street markets up there, big movie theater, just really local experience up there. So if you are looking to save a buck, maybe look up there. But if saving money doesn't really matter to you and you're looking to spend a little bit for a fancier experience, there is a place called Mount Boron. I'm probably saying that wrong, but this is an area that I did not spend much time in. But the vibe that I got was that this was a richer, fancy area with kind of big residential homes, probably an area that you'd want a car and kind of cliffside living. You're going to have great views of the ocean, but you are further out of like downtown Nice. You're kind of in between Nice and Villefrance, which we'll get to in just a minute with the day trips. But there are probably some great properties over there if you're looking for that sort of vacation. But like I said, probably expect to spend a lot and probably going to want to have that car. Now, let's talk about some day trips because it would absolutely be a mistake if you visited Nice and didn't explore the rest of the Riviera. So three really important things to know before I jump into these specific destinations. The first thing to know is that all the places I'm about to mention are easily accessible by the train. You're not going to need any other form of public transport to get there. Second important thing to know is that there are two main train stations in Nice. The big one is called Nice-Ville, and that's where the vast majority of people are going to be going in and out of and it is a great option. But if you are staying in the port, there's another stop called Nice, I think it's Riquier, and that one is actually a little bit closer. Both totally fine options, but just keep that in mind depending on where you're staying and where you're trying to get to. But the third and most important thing I'd say here to note is that if you're traveling west, sit on the left side of the train, and if you're traveling east, sit on the right side. The reason for that is those are the sides that will have the window view hugging up against the ocean. You don't want to end up being on the other side of the train having to look over and say, man, why didn't I pick that other side? So now you know that. But let's talk about some of these specific destinations. So I'm going to first start with my absolute favorites, the ones that I think you should not miss, and then we'll go into some of the ones that I think can be skipped. So the first one that is a must-must visit that we've already touched on is Villefrance. Villefrance is really close to Nice. In fact, you can even walk it, and I did walk it. It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to walk it depending on where you're walking from, but it is a beautiful walk the entire way, or you can just hop on that train. It's going to be one of the first stops. You're not going to spend more than 10-15 minutes on the train. And Villefrance is this really cute small town. It is beautiful. It is charming, beautiful beaches there. It's a wonderful place that if you're in Nice, it's probably the easiest place to go and check out. But another place that I think is a little bit better than Villefrance is a place called Ais. And for Sarah and I, we thought Ais was by far the most magical day trip that we could have taken. And Ais is still really, really close, but there are a couple important things to note here. One, Ais is kind of this like medieval, like mountain little town, and it is really, really tiny. Like think of kind of a castle up on the hill type thing. They have this beautiful garden on top that just overlooks like everything. It is incredible. The views are unmatched. It is a spectacular experience, and I would definitely say you have to get up there. But keep in mind that if you take the train to Ais, the stop Ais is at the bottom of the mountain. And like I just mentioned, the town is at the top. You can hike it, and it is a very real hike. Like it will take you over an hour. It is an intense hike. I would not recommend it unless you are a young fit and looking for an adventure. So what you can do instead is you can take the bus from Nice over to Ais. Taking the bus will get you really close to that old town in Ais, and then you can walk the rest of the way. It takes like maybe five minutes at most. So what we did is we actually took the bus up, and then on the way back down, we hiked down. It was a very beautiful scenic path that you are seeing right now. Hiked down instead of up, and then caught the train from Ais back to Nice. So keep in mind that there are a lot of different options there, but Ais, it is definitely worth seeing. Another of my favorite day trips was Antibes. It is a great little place. Lots to do, like a really cool old town. They've got a port themselves. They've got like these walls that you can kind of walk along outside the Picasso Museum. Like just stunning scenery everywhere, and they do have some sand beaches. And again, it's really close to Nice. So plenty to do there. So definitely go and check that out. But if you're wanting a more adventurous day trip, I'd highly recommend going to Ventimiglia, which is actually over in Italy, but it is a stunning little Italian town. Now, no, don't think like the Amalfi Coast kind of town, but it is still Italy. And they have these markets on Friday, which are just absolutely massive. You can find anything you could possibly think of there. But one of the coolest things to do is if you do go on a Friday when those markets are happening, if you go to their old town, well, everybody else is at the market, which means you have the old town to yourself. It is such a cool experience to just walk the streets by yourself because literally it feels like a ghost town when everybody else is at the market. So definitely check that out. But do make sure to bring your passport. When going on these day trips, if you're going to go to Monaco, which we're going to touch on in just a minute, or Italy, it is very important to make sure you always have your passport because I think that's something that a lot of tourists, unfortunately, just forget. It's an easy mistake to make, but hopefully you don't make that now. But let's talk about some of those overrated day trips in my opinion. The first one which I just mentioned is Monaco. It is also very close to Nice and I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. It is a beautiful place, definitely something to see and hey, it's a whole country that you get to check off the list, right? But to be honest, unless you have a bajillion dollars to spend, I just don't really see what the appeal is. If you do want to go and see the Monte Carlo Casino, I get that. Do note that you do have to have your passport to actually enter the casino. They will actually scan it and you will have to pay entry to get into the casino. So keep that in mind. But overall, I could probably do without Monaco. The other place that I think a lot of tourists end up trying to get to because everybody says you gotta go check it out is Cannes and I get it, right? Big film festival, a lot of notoriety internationally there, but to me, it was kind of like a Monaco, a little bit less fancy, but mostly just really high-end shopping, not that much to see or do compared to some of those other places that I've talked about. Not saying that you shouldn't go and see it, but just know what to expect there, which is high-end shopping and a lot of wealthy folks. The other place that isn't necessarily the high-end shopping and wealthy folks, but a lot of people said, yeah, you got to go check out is Menton. And for me, I just didn't get the appeal of Menton. I'm probably missing something. Again, not saying that it was bad, but there was nothing that stood out to me like some of the others. And to me, I think that was kind of the point is Ventimiglia was unique because I was in Italy. I was getting to have a pizza in Italy and the old town was charming as was by far the most beautiful place on the French Riviera, in my opinion, and was worth going out of the way for. Now, Antibes was also really beautiful, had a lot to offer. So those places that I said are kind of maybe overrated. From my perspective, they just didn't have as many unique things that I was interested in, but that doesn't mean that they won't have appeal for you. And of course, there are so many other places that I didn't get to hit. So there are plenty of other places to check out as well. Also, if you've made it this far, I assume that you found something a little bit helpful. So if you want more helpful travel tips like this, I started a newsletter where I send out a weekly travel tip every single Tuesday. So if you want to sign up for that, the link will be in the description. But if you're watching at home on a TV, this QR code right here, whip out your phone, scan that, and you can sign up there as well. But I hope all this was helpful. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section, and we'll catch you guys next time.