Barcelona to French Riviera in Feb

How long do you have? What are your interests? Hard to make suggestions for a vague question. Any special needs? When in the winter? which month?

Agree with Judy: how many stops, how many days between the two? February is Lemon festival time in Menton and Carnaval in Nice. Do you want to see these or avoid the crowds?

To maximize time in each region, you may want to consider flying (BCN to NCE) instead of a train. A midday Vueling flight (1h20m) would give you 'half' an extra day in Gaudí Country and Côte d'Azur, respectively. We flew between the two but in the opposite direction, landing in Barcelona, which felt like getting an extra day in both places. You won't need a car in Barcelona, and I'd suggest Nice as Riviera homebase for ease of train routes between the villages. Nice will also afford more options for lodging and museums in offseason winter months. If you want to experience some of the hilltop villages, such as Saint-Paul de Vence or Èze, they may require a 'last mile' taxi from nearest rail station. We found both towns very enjoyable, as well as Villefranche-sur-Mer, which is easily accessible from Nice. Have a great trip!

Two places along the way that we really enjoyed visiting last year were Girona and Perpignan. Girona has a very atmospheric old town, huge cathedral, and you can walk the city walls. Perpignan also has a lovely old town and a huge palace (Palace des rois de Majorque). Both are on the train line.

If you have time you can also stop in Figueres, just north of Girona, which has the Teatre-Museu Dali, and if you have even more time, you can get a bus from Figueres out to Cadaques and see Dali's home, preserved as when he lived there. There's not a whole lot to see in Figueres besides the museum, however, so if you're not interested in Dali I wouldn't stop there. But if you are a fan I can't recommend highly enough going to see his home.

Closer to the Riviera we've also enjoyed Marseilles, with a side trip to Arles to see all the locations Van Gogh painted and visit the amphitheatre. If you're interested in Van Gogh at all I definitely recommend that. We've also been to Nice in February. It was warmer than here but we still needed coats. The advantage of visiting at this time is fewer crowds- we did a bus trip to Eze and there was hardly anyone there so we got to enjoy it to ourselves, tho of course a lot was closed. Good luck with your planning.

We have traveled from Barcelona to Nice by train. It's a long trip because the rail lines between Marseille and Italy are not equipped for high-speed trains. Figure a solid three hours between BCN and M, and then another three between M and Nice. I assume you are making stops. Do not miss Montpellier and Menton. Perpignan and Toulon are skippable imho.

Barcelona to Marseille is minimum 5.5 hours.