Cars in the French Riviera

Where will you be and where do you hope to go while there?

The answers to those questions should help inform your decision on whether to rent a car or not.

Yeah ; very much depends on where you are staying and what your plans are ; what places you plan on visiting in the area.

I just returned and had a rental car ; feared awful traffic but it really was not bad at all.
We stayed in the hills, 2 mins outside of Eze (we were staying in Eze but not in Eze Village to be more exact)
The stretch between Cannes and St. Tropez I heard is the one area that you must avoid with a car.

Overall traffic in Nice and around Nice to the east was not bad.
Some of the roads are curvy and narrow which was sometimes not fun.

For a base of Eze the car was helpful as public transit is lacking ; for a base of Nice public transit is great.

Unless you are just staying in cities, a car gives you more flexibility. Unless I am doing a short city break, I always hire a car.

If you are staying in Nice, the coastal destinations (places to the east like Villefranche, Monaco, and Menton, and to the west like Antibes and Cannes) have buses 3-4 times per hour and trains twice an hour. The trains are unreserved and cheap, and the buses are unreserved and dirt cheap (€1.50 for a single ticket, with day tickets and other deals to make it even cheaper).

For places higher up, the bus service is less frequent, and even more sharply curtailed on Sundays. For instance, when I went, Nice to Eze Village was 16 per day (8 on Sundays) and Nice to La Turbie was 4 per day (none on Sundays). Being based in Nice, I was able to make it work without much difficulty, but a car certainly gives more flexibility.

If you're not staying in Nice, a car becomes immediately handier, as Nice is the hub of the transit network in the region. For instance, if you were staying in Eze Village, buses only go to Monaco, Nice, and Eze sur mer (on the coast); you'd have to make connections to get anywhere else, and would probably need a few taxis to fill in the gaps in bus service.

Rick's books have all the details about getting around this area without a car. Note that his Provence And The French Riviera book has MUCH more information about this region than his general France book, covering many more towns.

Thanks everyone for your comments,

We are staying for 2 weeks in a villa in Mandieu de Poule, a little east of Cannes. I have been throughout Provence, but not the Riviera. It sounds like a car would be handy for the inner riviera, but necessarily on the coast. It's possible we might go to Corsica just for something different on the car ferry, but that sounds like a car throughout Corsica would be necessary. Rick has always recommended renting here in the states, but is it a pain to rent there if you decide last minute.

If you rent online through www.autoeurope.com it would be like renting from the US.

I would not assume that your car-rental agreement will allow you tontake the car on a ferry.

Whether you need the car all the time on the Riviera or only for days when you want to travel into the hills will probably depend on how close your lodgings are to the nearest train station. If you're going to need to walk to a bus stop, wait for a bus, take the bus to a train station, wait for a train, and so on--and do that in reverse at the end of the day, it will make for a frustrating vacation, I think.

If you're going up and down the coast there is a local train. It's not quick. In season, however, the traffic will be even slower. Like any populated beach area parking is at a premium. The only downside is when you want to get off the coast up into the hills. It's not convenient to do that without a car. On balance, I'd say go without the car, see the hill areas on the way in or out. I turned in my car and used the train.

Last year I was in France with my Father. We picked up a rental car in Avignon and spent a leisurely day driving to Nice. We also drove the cost into Monaco. Drove a good part of the F1 track route including the Hairpin. The Drive into Italy about a half hour.
As much as I love this site and enjoy and use Rick Steve’s books and videos I have noticed that there is more then a bit of an anti car/ pro mass transit tendency on this site. If there is mass transit available then many (most?) folks will favor that over driving.
The single biggest regret/ mistake I think I made on my trip was to drop off my car in Avignon and take the train to Tours. I could have driven the distance in about the amount of time the train took. And easily done it in the time it took to drop off the car. Catch the train change trains (once) get a ride to my hotel in Tours that evening and the back to pick up a car the next morning. And by driving I could have seen an area of the country that I didn’t see on the train. So driving has its pros and cons.
On another day we drove the cost all the way to St Tropez. On all those trips we stopped at various places along the way. We encountered amazing views and wonderful little places we had never heard of. We picked up lunch in some small town and encountered a little park along the cost with amazing views (someplace not to far from St Tropez)
For our trip the car was great. It allowed us to see a Huge amount of the coast at our speed. Mass transit is nice but it means you go on there schedule and to there locations. We never would have found our little park or encountered the WW2 landcraft at the memorial park.
And for my elderly father the car allowed him to rest a bit but still see things.
We found parking was pretty easy to find everywhere except Monaco. In Cannes we actually found a free parking space only a few feet from access to the beach. And one of my most treasured photos is of my father wading in the sea. Something he would not have done if we had taken a train into town.

Driving in Monaco was interesting and not for the faint of heart. But everywhere else it was no worse than any busy place in the US. And driving the cost road was a blast in out little BMW.
Personally while I know that mass transit is readily available and frequent and if you miss one you can catch the next. But it is my nature that any day my schedule is effected by the schedule of transit then I am not as relaxed as I WILL be keeping the mass transit schedule in mind when I am out and about and thus not as relaxed and free with my time as I would otherwise be. I keep the stations and schedule in the back of my mind and I find it does effect my day. Unless we are talking about something like the Tube in London. But that is a personal thing
In our case our choice was made simpler because we used the car around Avignon to go to Nimes and see the Pont de Gard aqueduct among other things.
So I think a car is a perfectly practical method. And if you enjoy driving on nice winding roads with amazing views then I highly recommend driving the coast. It is just a matter of personal choice.

Excellent and personal advice! Thank you all for taking the time to help me make good decisions. I think it's going to be a car rental. I like the independence to much. Also, we can always take the train when we want to.
Merci

I think you've made a good choice, given your primary base. I would scope out how far you are to the train station, as it is much easier to get into Monaco (and Nice) during peak season with the train. However, the drive on the cornice can be spectacular. And for most of the hill towns and the area from St. Tropez/Ramantuelle and beyond, it's the best option. I normally take public transit around Nice and Monaco, it's easier than navigating and paying for multiple, narrow, packed garages, unless you have mobility issues. (That's true even after parking)

We're also car people - I like the freedom to go where I want when I want and simply plan accordingly for parking the car when we're in Europe. Along the French Riviera, I prefer having a car - there is so much to do and see, some things over-rated so you won't stay as long as you thought, other things you'll be having so much fun, you don't want to pick up and go when the train schedule dictates you must leave now. That said, public transportation is good, it's just limiting, so if I had to go one way or the other along southern France, I'd go with a car!

Wanted just to add if you don't mind paying for parking Nice and Monaco are actually quite easy with a car.
Much easier than I expected ; now if you were adverse to paying for parking you could have problems.

We drove right to Place Massena and parked the car underground on the side facing the sea; plenty of open lots/spots mid-summer and Monaco has tons of parking spots but you will have to pay and use the underground lots.

One bit of driving we did I thought would be scenic and was not at all was driving around Cap-Ferrat. Total waste of time, you can see absolutely nothing from the road, not even nice houses just nice gates. Go to see the Villa Rothschild but do not go for a drive around.

If you’re considering Corsica - a great, scenic island - I would consider flying to Bastia, Calvi or Ajaccio and renting a car there. The from Nice, a flight takes an hour, the ferry 8 hours plus loading/unloading. Ferry fare for a vehicle is not inexpensive and some car rental companies do not allow cars on ferries.

I visited the island 2 years ago and loved it. Definitely want to return!

Mreynolds is right about the fancy private villas--they are nearly all surrounded by high, view-blocking walls. It's not an issue only on Cap Ferrat. If you can get up above them, you may be able to get a bird's-eye view.