Riviera - yes or no

I love the Nice area. I stay in Villefranche sur mee a small town with good food on the water. Big cruise ships stop there but staying there is so different. Visiting Eze is marvelous. I only walk along the beach and stick my toes in the water. Villefranche has a sand beach, many families use the beach. Great people watching.

Just my 2 cents. June

I put off visiting the French Riviera for a long time, because it just didn't seem appealing to me. Last May, I finally decided to stop for a few days in Nice on the way from the Italian Riviera to Paris by train (also via Provence).

I liked Nice more than I thought I would, though I still didn't exactly fall in love with it. The old town has a certain charm to it but is, as I expected, very touristy. But Nice has a relaxing vibe. It's a vacation town and feels like it.

I had three nights in Nice and took the bus and train a few days to visit other towns. Villefranche-sur-Mer (via bus #100 along the coast for the great views) was probably my favorite. Antibes was also nice. Cannes was mobbed due to the then-ongoing film festival (I had known this though), looked interesting otherwise. I disliked Monaco for some reason.

However, I didn't care for the feel of the French Riviera at all. It felt too expensive and glitzy for me. I much prefer the Italian Riviera, which feels more modest and, somehow, more authentic to me. I had been to the Italian Riviera a few times before and just come from there (a few nights in Camogli, north of the Cinque Terre, where I had a blast), and nowhere in the French Riviera excited me much at all, even if a few of the towns mentioned above were still pretty nice. Personal preference.

I don't remember the timing of your trip.

I enjoyed ranging up and down the Riviera from a base in Nice last year. There were plenty of tourists around even in May, though it was clearly not yet peak season. There are places you can walk (such as on and around Cap Ferrat, Cap d'Antibes and Cap Martin) where you won't encounter too many other people.

I liked Menton a lot, but the old town was packed with tourists. However, there are two excellent gardens there, and they were lightly visited.

St.-Paul-de-Vence was wall-to-wall people (reminded me of Taormina), but it was worth it for the Fondation Maeght, and the nearby larger town of Vence, which has a very nice historic center, was bereft of tourists the day I visited. Vence, however, doesn't have sea views. I was told by a local that the nearby Tourrettes-sur-Loup is lovely and under-visited, but alas I didn't manage to squeeze it in and can't speak to the scenery in the area. All three of these places involve a bus from Nice.

There are far too many interesting places on the Rivera for a cruise to be a good way to visit the area.

Thanks for your thoughts. I am sure there is beauty to be found on the Riviera, but we are going to many beautiful places in France. I suspect that we might be better off applying those five nights in Nice to staying longer in other areas. After all, we live near Portland and all that weirdness rubs off on us. We're not into glitz and glamour or even being near the vicinity of it.

Do you really have to do five nights in Nice? Maybe just a two or three? As I said, I liked it more than I thought I would...even though I didn't love it. I still thought it was worth visiting, in part because I was going through it anyway. If Nice is a way out of your way on this trip then maybe I would skip it but if passing through, why not stop? At least you'll know what it's like...

We are traveling 9/9-10/16. Andrew, Nice is out of our way and we would have to backtrack a bit to drive up to the Alps area (weather is always a dicey deal) where I will have fingers crossed for a cable car ride or scenic drives. I think we can take those nights and apply them to other stops where I feel we might enjoy some more time (e.g., Alsace, Provence). Perhaps we were leaning that way and your information helped us. Perhaps another trip, another time. Merci!

I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Gorges du Vernon as another possible day trip from the Riviera. The scenery is beautiful; and there is a charming medieval village, Moustiers Ste. Marie, at the top.

Rosalyn, the Gorges and the Corniches were two of the places I thought sounded quite appealing. But overall, I'm definitely not wild for the glitz and glamour scene that appears to be the primary vibe of the Riviera.

The glitz and glamour factor are probably highest in Monaco and Cannes, plus in areas like Cap Ferrat (or further west, in St. Tropez). There is quite a bit of beauty along the coast, so if you do reconfigure your days I would suggest making time to go to the coast, like in Cassis. I've been to the other areas in your itinerary, and the south takes on a different flavor and scenery than the other areas.

I've never been affected by the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and I regularly travel to the Cote d'Azur. I love Monaco, and all the little towns between Monaco and Nice.

I don't stop and gawk, if a fancy car goes by, so what? In a cafe in Monaco I had lunch (just a snack) at a table next to one of my all-time Formula 1 heroes and his wife. I quietly mentioned it to my wife, didn't bother him (who wants a fan in your face when having a meal?) and we have remembered it since, but it was nice to know that he and I have similar lunch taste - a sandwich bar in a small mall.

I find the countryside and coastline between Villefranche sur Mer and the Cap d'Ail and the western reaches of Monaco, especially the Cap Ferrat particularly captivating. I don't care who lives there.

As I see it you can find what you want there.

I totally agree with Nigel, plus if you are interested in art, there are several good museums in Nice, including the Museum of Modern Art. I have never felt I was surrounded by "chic, fashionable, beachy people" on the Riviera, though I wouldn't mind having a gander at one or two just for fun.

Similar to Nigel, we didn't participate in the glitz and glamour, and it's not really in your face on much of the Riviera anyway. There are many interesting non-glitzy towns and villages along the coast and inland with the standard old town narrow cobbled streets, some of which have been mentioned, but also Le-Bar-sur-Loup and Antibes. If you pick the right time of year you can find various festivals going on in some of these (orange, lemon, lavender), and possibly get caught up in them by happenstance if you're there at the right time.

People seem to want Nice as their base on the Riviera. When we there there a year ago, we chose Antibes for 8 nights. We stopped into Nice for the better part of a day, but I don't see the appeal of it for anything other than a day trip.

I went mainly for the art. In addition to the above places mentioned, I followed the work of Cocteau, saw the Leger museum in Biot, the Picasso chapel in Vallauris, the ancient perfume factory in Grasse, the Matisse chapel in Vence. Maybe because I wasn't on their trail, I didn't find crowds of tourists nor was I overcome with glitz. However I was narrowly missed by a pan of spaghetti as I walked under a window in Menton where above, a heated argument was taking place. There's lots to see but If art isn't your thing . . .

Hi - Lyon is a wonderful city with great history too. And Aix en Provence and the nearby villages are also lovely.

Thank you for the extra postings about the Riviera. It is heartening to hear that there is wonderful art (which we love) and experiences beyond glitz and glamour. By taking some of those nights and moving them to lengthen some of our other locations, we'll enjoy those areas more intimately. We definitely plan to see Cassis and the new National Park in that area on the Cote d'Azur. We hope to tour northern Italy one day and include the Riviera on that trip. Please know that I am not trying to marginalize the Riviera; I was just trying to gain an understanding of how it might fit into this trip.
Merci!

I neglected to mention that some of the best fun I have is walking the coastline path some or all of the way from Villefranche sur Mer to the beginning of Monaco. I especially like the Cap Ferrat area but enjoy that whole coastline.