Paris wedding then south of

Enjoy!
Assume you have worked out the technical/legal aspects of getting married in France if the wedding is in six weeks.
In Nice, I recommend the Chagall Museum in addition to Matisse (but I love Chagall!)
Also, if you will be using any long-distance trains be aware that the railroad workers' union has scheduled strike days April-June. May be over before you arrive ...or not.

Thank you so much! I am hoping to visit the Chagall as well. I have heard that is amazing. We are just having a “symbolic” ceremony, so it will not be legal but we will be following up with a courthouse ceremony in Florida. Our family knows this and and no one is offended that this is not the legal ceremony-everyone wants to go to Paris :)

I hope the train strikes don’t impact us. We are taking one from Paris to aix on the 17th so will need to keep an eye out

hi taylor
was planning this kinda trip staying in avignon and going to cassis for the wines. had family member sick with cancer and had to cancel. anywho check clossaintemagdeleine.fr and vins-cassis-bodin.fr
the clos one looks absolutey gorgeous on the water, check times and days for tasting and if reservation needed. another site "marvelous-provence.com" we were planning a private taxi tour with ventoux-decouvertes.com. since i notice "water" you may want to the village/town of isle sur la sorgue hope this gives you some info and is helpful. also check cedricsparis.com, they do tours in 2CV and a photo tour as well. we did a city tour with them, it was a fun few hours. happy travel
aloha

I am sorry to hear about your family member. That must have been difficult. Thank you for the winery suggestions! It looks like the one on the water does a Saturday tour so we may have to do that. It does look beautiful! We will have to look into the 2cv car too.

I'm not sure when you're planning to drop the car. Parking can be very challenging in Europe when you want to be near the sightseeing center--which is usually the old part of town where streets replaced medieval footpaths. Driving is probably the best way to get to Eze (there are buses from Nice but no trains), but for Monaco and Menton I suspect the train would be a lot easier unless you'll have someone with you who needs to be dropped off as close as possible to your first sightseeing target. I think hitting all three places that day may be challenging. Do watch out for pickpockets on the coastal trains.

I haven't been to Monaco myself, but I know it has lots of significant attractions: the prince's car collection, one or two major gardens, and a respected oceanography museum. If you want to go in the casino, you may have to be spiffily attired. Check that out ahead of time so you won't be disappointed.

I enjoyed Menton a lot. The historic area tends to be full of tourists (I was there last May), which isn't a plus, but it's atmospheric if you can squint your eyes and sort of ignore your fellow travelers. There are two very nice gardens. Both are on hillsides, so they could be problematic if any of your travel party have mobility issues. Val Rahmeh is walkable from the historic center, but it would take more time than I think you'd want to spend, so I recommend a taxi. Serre de la Madone definitely needs a bus (not terribly frequent) or a taxi.

I am not a beach person, so I can't help with that aspect of your plans. I suggest Googling for water temperature, however, because it may not be what you are expecting. Also, I found the weather in southern France not as warm and sunny as I had expected it to be last May. The first two weeks were very overcast; things stabilized somewhat after the middle of the month. This, I assume, is why the Rivera's peak season in July-August despite the unpleasantly hot temperatures likely during that period. In any case, the weather was very nice for sightseeing; I'm just not sure it will be "beach weather".

I remember reading that during peak periods (I don't know whether May is in that category), there are limitations on hiking to the Calanques. That's something else to check out before you head over. I took a boat trip from Marseille (also available from Cassis), so that's another option. While looking for information on hiking quotas (which I didn't immediately find), I encountered this blog post about walking in. Perhaps it will be of interest.