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    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera

    Our French Riviera travel guides and itineraries include transportation guides for each town, giving you the best routes to take and guides to the different transportation modes.

    Check out our guides for how to get around Nice or Cannes, or learn about Monaco’s many transportation options. Here’s a quick overview:

    Arriving By Plane

    The Aéroport Nice Côte d’Azur is the main hub for the French Riviera and the second busiest international airport in the country after Paris. Check out our guide to the Nice airport, direct flights, and transportation options from the airport.

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - nice transportation
    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - nice france airport transportation options guide
    The Nice Airport

    The French Riviera By Car

    If you plan on staying in just one spot, like Nice or Cannes, or staying along the coastal towns, don’t worry about renting a car. These towns are pedestrian-friendly, so you can walk almost anywhere or easily hop a train or bus to a nearby village. Plus, traffic in and out of Cannes and Monaco is notoriously bad and parking spaces are tough to find in the summer.

    Uber operates throughout most of the Côte d’Azur (including Monaco, as of April 2023) and is a much easier option than calling a taxi or waiting for one at a designated taxi stand.

    That said, French road trips just don’t get more glamorous than this: cinematic views, searing sunshine, art history aplenty and the Mediterranean around every turn. Cruising the Côte d’Azur is the French road trip everyone has to do at least once in their lifetime.

    This is, above all, a place to take your time, stopping where fancy dictates.

    The downside is that the French Riviera has some of the most treacherously narrow roads, worst traffic, scary-tight parking lots, and one of the highest traffic accident rates in France. The toxic mix of French car driving enthusiasm with many powerful motorcycles and youths on small scooters makes holiday motoring often an unrewarding experience.

    If you’re driving during peak hours, it can take 3 hours to get from Antibes to Monaco, whereas Google might tell you it’ll only take 45 minutes. It’s always better to travel by train (which takes around the same amount of time as driving if there’s no traffic) if you’re going from city to city during peak season or peak hours (roughly 8am to 10am and 4pm to 6pm).

    Be aware that parking a car in many areas of the French Riviera is notoriously difficult (and sometimes literally impossible to find a spot). The amazingly-narrow turns in the lots scrape up many cars, so if you’re renting, make sure you have insurance. People park everywhere, between trees, poles and sometimes even on sidewalks, and parking tickets are doled out like candy. Drivers routinely bump each other in order to get in and out of tight spaces.

    You may also want to be aware that gas prices in France are some of the highest in Europe. The government publishes a map of all the gas stations and their prices so you can compare before choosing where to fill up.

    The Corniches

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - cap ferrat travel guide france 1
    A view of Cap Ferrat from The MOYENNE corniche

    This trio of corniches (coastal roads) hugs the cliffs between Nice and Monaco, each higher than the last, with dazzling views of the Med. From fashionable residential capes, Belle Époque resorts, medieval villages, and picturesque hills, the Corniches do not lack anything when it comes to breathtaking views.

    Filmmakers, writers, celebs and artists have all had their hearts stolen by this glittering stretch of coastline: by the end of this trip, you’ll understand why. From film town Cannes to down-to-earth Nice, via the corkscrew turns of the Corniches and into millionaires’ Monaco, it’s a drive you’ll remember forever.

    The windy Corniche Drives were named after ‘cornices’, the decorative friezes that run along the top of elegant buildings. Try to avoid the dreadful summer traffic in July and August, but any other time is a dream.

    Here’s a guide to the Corniche roads and some of the sights along the way:

    And you can take a tour via Google Maps:

    Above: the Corniche Inférieure

    The Corniche Inférieure (D6098) skirts the glittering shores, and villa-lined waterfront between Nice and Monaco, with numerous swimming opportunities. Built in the 1860s, it passes through the towns of Villefranche-sur-Mer, St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Èze-sur-Mer and Cap d’Ail.

    Up in the hills, the jewel in the crown of the Moyenne Corniche (D6007) is the medieval village of Èze, spectacularly perched on a rocky promontory offering awe-inspiring views of the coastline. Cut through rock in the 1920s, it takes drivers from Nice past the Col de Villefranche (149m), Èze and Beausoleil (the French town bordering Monaco).

    And then there is the dangerous Grande Corniche (D2564), snaking along the 500m-high cliffs. This underdeveloped road is often engulfed in fog and at times too narrow for cars to pass each other without coming to a near stop. On a clear day, views from the spectacular cliff-hanging Grande Corniche are mesmerising, and you’ll probably want to stop at every bend to admire the unfolding vistas. There are no villages of note along it until you reach hilltop La Turbie, best known for its imposing Roman triumphal monument.

    Hitchcock was sufficiently impressed by Napoléon’s Grande Corniche to use it as a backdrop for his film To Catch a Thief (1956), starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Ironically, Kelly died in 1982 after crashing her car on this very same road. Nevertheless, this stunning trio of coastal roads offers the most outstanding overview (literally!) of the Riviera.

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - saint raphael esterel nature
    a seaside road in the esterel

    The Highway

    The (less scenic) A8 motorway / highway, or “La Provençale,” connects Nice to the Esterel and then on to Aix-en-Provence in the west and Menton and the Italian border in the east. The 950 kilometer (or 590 mile) drive from Paris to Nice takes about eight hours.

    Breakdowns and Accidents

    If you break down on a motorway in France, even if you have European breakdown recovery in place, your first call shouldn’t be to the RAC (roadside assistance service). French motorways are privately managed so instead of calling the RAC, first use the emergency telephones – these are orange and positioned every 2km along the motorway. If you can’t get to one of these orange phones, call emergency services by dialing 112. 

    Ride-Share Apps

    BlaBlaCar is a ride-share that you can book via their website or the app. It costs approximately €3 per ride to go from the Nice airport to Monaco.

    The Klaxit app enables passengers to travel at very low cost, or for free (drivers earn a small fee, from €1.50 to €3 per passenger, depending on the distance travelled).

    The Famous French Riviera Train Routes

    Train is the best, fastest, and easiest way to travel along the French Riviera. With stops in every seaside town, and lovely views along the way, it’s the area’s preferred mode of transportation. The rail system links the French Riviera to other destinations throughout France, as well as major European cities.

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - french riviera guide travel 1
    Expect beautiful views from the train

    The Regional Express Train, or TER, connects major coastal cities throughout the Riviera, from Fréjus to San Remo, over on the Italian Riviera. Trains run about every 30 minutes and most of the stations sit within walking distance of the town center, or offer a bus service from the station. You can purchase tickets from machines at each station, just be sure to stamp your ticket in one of the validation machines before hopping on board.

    Both TER (regional trains) and SNCF (national trains) are on the SNCF website and the SNCF Connect app. It’s best to download the app onto your phone so can buy your tickets and see timetables in advance before arriving at the train station to depart. It saves time at the station and sometimes the machines to validate the ticket don’t work, making you completely vulnerable if your ticket is inspected. The SNCF Connect app eliminates all of that hassle. Your ticket is stored on your phone and you can validate yourself. The app is in English, too.

    Train tickets are valid for the day so if you miss your train the ticket is still valid. Also, if you want to stop off enroute you can and then just reconnect by revalidating your ticket on entering the train.

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - nice transportation options
    The Tourist Train of wonders

    From April to November, the guided voyage on the “Train of Wonders” / Trains des Merveilles (€29 round-trip, leaving Nice at 8:30am) runs from Nice to Tende in the Valley of the Marvels, with stops in perched villages like Peille . The train climbs nearly 3,280 feet high on the two-hour trip through the lush Mercantour National Park . Throughout the journey, you will benefit from the comments of a tour guide who will explain the sights and the rich artistic heritage and culture of the Nice hinterland (in both French and English). You can read reviews here.

    A tip from a reader: “A good full day trip can be had by taking the Train des Merveilles to the point where it circles back: Tende. Then, wait at Tende (and visit their ‘museum of wonders’) for the Italian train to Cuneo, and take that train to Ventimiglia and finally back to Nice along the coast. But (a) check times carefully as the service is sparse, and suspension of the trains is common; and (b) take your passport as French border guards on the look-out for illegal immigrants can be very officious.”

    Taking the Bus

    Getting To -and Around- the French Riviera - french riviera travel monaco bus transportation 1

    Buses snake throughout the Côte d’Azur, connecting coastal towns to perched medieval villages. With the Ticket Azur (€1.50), you can hop on buses that link Nice to nearby towns like Grasse, Saint-Paul de Vence, Eze Village and Monaco.

    • #100 Bus (€1.50, every 15 minutes from 6am to 8pm) runs the length of the Corniche Inférieure between Nice (where it departs from the port) and Menton, stopping at all the villages along the way, including Villefranche-sur-Mer, Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Cap d’Ail and Monaco.
    • #81 Bus serves Villefranche (20 minutes) and St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (30 minutes).
    • #82 Bus serves the Moyenne Corniche from Nice all the way to Èze (20 minutes); bus 112 carries on to Beausoleil (40 minutes, Monday to Saturday).
    • #116 Bus links the town of La Turbie with Nice (€1.50, 35 minutes, five daily), and bus 114 goes to Monaco (€1.50, 30 minutes, six daily).

    Want more? Check out our guides for how to get to and from the Nice airport or Cannes, or learn about Monaco’s many transportation options.

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