We will be leaving Carcassonne early morning on June 29 2025 by car. Plan on driving to St. Paul de Vence which google maps says takes 5 hours and would like to visit a few hours. We will be driving next day to Levanto. Italy for 3 days in Cinque Terrre. My question is where to stay after visiting St. Paul de Vence. Would Menton be too far or would you have a suggestion for us. We would prefer to be on coastal town. Thank you for any help.
Posted by
Long Beach, Ca, usa
1221 posts
Add some time to Google maps. I believe they haven't;t built in enough time for food/gas/comfort stops. Time of day will affect traffic also. We always pad the times we find online, which, in my opinion, seem to calculate times based on middle-of-the-night traffic. Double check by using viamicherlin.com to calculate travel times, and pad those times as well, for the same reasons.
Google map times are pretty accurate here in southern California, but I feel they aren't quite as accurate in France. Others may find that they are. It has been a while for me, so I could be wrong.
Posted by
Long Beach, Ca, usa
1221 posts
Oops! viamichelin.com Sorry about the typo.
Posted by
Denver, CO
791 posts
Antibes? I was staying in Antibes when I took the train/bus combo to St. Paul de Vence and it worked well. Since you are driving, you'll need have to check to see if it is on the way to Levanto, but I really liked Antibes. I also enjoyed Menton if you decide to go a bit further.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10577 posts
Driving along the coast anywhere between Saint Paul de Vence and Menton would take hours getting past all the beach cafes, waiters carrying food to tables on the beach side, traffic jams, etc. Even the moyen corniche drive is a two-lane twisty drive through all the towns. The upper corniche gives you beautiful views and is less crowded and you can take that to Menton.
My own choice would be to stay the night in Saint Paul, or the separate town of Vence, or as suggested Antibes, and hop on the autoroute the next day. Starting around Nice the autoroute is pretty spectacular, passing through mountains and over huge viaducts. Any costal roads to Levanto take three times as long as the autoroute and going through the towns, such as San Remo, is just one big traffic jam.
Posted by
OP
Chilton Wi
10 posts
Thank you for all the information as it's very hard to understand the area and with only 1 day even worse. I've decided to make a reservation in Menton and stay off coastal roads. If we would get near St.Paul de Vence early maybe we would stop and see but I feel our best bet would be to take auto route and get on upper corniche road after Nice and go to Menton. We could take a dip in sea, eat a nice evening meal and walk around shops and enjoy Menton before heading to Italy. Thank you and if you have anything else to add to help us it will be greatly appreciated.