Recommendations of charming day-trips from Nice?

Absolutely recommend St Paul de Vence, about an hour by bus. You can also take a train or bus to Monaco, not a small town but historical, interesting, and there's lots to do there on a day trip. On the coast there's also Villefranche-sur-mer, Antibes, Menton. Lots of options.

In addition to the above recommendations, I think this qualifies as interesting and beautiful with wonderful gardens and gorgeous views: Le Jardin exotique d'eze. We spent a week based in Nice and never ran out of wonderful things to see and do. Have a great time!

Rick's book Provence And The French Riviera has information about lots of places you can see as an easy day trip from Nice, complete with directions on how to get there. His general France book has much less information about this area.

Just off the top of my head, some options within an hour from Nice are Cannes, Antibes, Haut-de-Cagnes, Juan-Les-Pins, Vence, and St. Paul de Vence (all west of Nice), and Menton, Monaco, Villefranche, Beaulieu sur mer, Eze Village, and La Turbie (all east of Nice). Read about these and see which ones appeal to you.

All the suggestions above are great.... I love St. Paul de Vence and Eze Village. I saw a movie on Netflix about Matisse and the stained glass windows that are in the church in St. Paul.. I cannot remember the name but am sure you can google it.

Thank you so much, everyone. These are all great suggestions. Now I know where to look, especially when some of you love the same places.

Monaco for a day is worth it. Train there, bus back. On the way back take the bus side trip to Uze up on the hilltop. Amazing view and very old hill top town.

Another bus trip we took was west to Antibes. Picasso museum. Nice walkable town that has an English bookstore!

If into perfume a trip to Grasse is possible. We had lunch there as we drove through on our way through Provence using Rick's itinerary.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience, tmikeporter. It sounds perfect to me, especially Antibes, Uze and Monaco.

The Matisse windows are at the chapel of a convent in Vence, which is a different town to St Paul de Vence, although they are both on the same bus route from Nice. The chapel has slightly restricted opening hours - check at http://www.vence.fr/la-chapelle-du-rosaire-chef-d?lang=fr (the English version of the page unfortunately does not give the opening times). I strongly recommend it. Be warned that the buses can get extremely crowded in the high season.

Philip... That,s right. I remember we had a long road trip that day and we did go to both. Thanks.

We had three days , one day we spent loafing around on Castle hill and walking the seafront in Nice and went to Eze and Villa Rothschild on Cap Ferrat on day 2 and Monaco and La Turbie on day 3. Admittedly we only did the amazing Aquarium, walked around the harbour area and the Cathedral in Monaco, we skipped the palace and the casino as neither interested us.
I would recommend going to Eze early and avoiding the crowds that ascend to the village later in the day. The Villa is Ok and the gardens are interesting, but being an Indian we had seen more opulent villas in India.
La turbie is a interesting roman monument and it provides an amazing birds eye view of Monaco . Also worth it because of the sheer lack of crowds.
Monaco is interesting enough to warrant a day trip and has something for everyone. I personally loved the Aquarium with its good variety of colourful fish. Also we were the first people in the aquarium and almost had it to ourselves for some time..
Overall its a great area to explore.. Enjoy..