Travel from Paris to Nice and Riviera travel questions

I would recommend Antibes as your base on the Riviera. Very beautiful setting, nice historic center and market, Picasso Museum, great restaurants, stunning cliffside walks, convenient train either east (Nice, Monaco) or west (Cannes, St Tropez, Juan Le Pins); also close to the hilltop villages or Maritime Alps.

Definitely take the train from Gare de Lyon. Provence and the Riviera are far enough apart that you'll want two bases. Nice or Antibes could be one for the Riviera, Avignon or Nimes or Arles or St-Remy for Provence and Cotes du Rhone. You can use local trains for Riviera sightseeing, but for Provence a car would be much better.

The SNCF website will show you all the rail options. While you can't buy tickets this far in advance, the schedules will probably be the same next year, or close enough for your planning purposes. Auto Europe is a good way to rent a car.

Flights vs trains- flying = an hour (ish) getting to the airport + 2 hours before the flight + 1.5 hrs flight + maybe 1/2 hr to your hotel ( if you don't have to collect luggage) = about 5 hours and all the usual hassles involved. Train= 1/2 hour to the train station+ 15 minutes before departure +6 hours on train + 15 minutes to hotel = 7 hours minimal hassle.

As to where to stay- how long will you be in the south of France? Ideally you would want to stay in 2 locations for the most efficient day tripping. One on the Riviera, like Nice. And one in Provence - perhaps Arles or Aix-en-Provence (and hopefully you would be willing to rent a car to explore Provence).

Where would you fly home from?

Thank you for your replies! Those were all super helpful for sure.

We will plan on taking the train from Paris to the Riviera and then staying there for a few days before we make our way in a rental car towards Provence.
Our total time in the Riviera/ Provence area would be about 6 days.

I am not sure where we would fly home from yet in the Riviera. Do you know if it is feasible and not crazy expensive to fly back to the US from Nice?
Wondering what is the closest international airport in that area that would have good connections back to the US. Our final destination is Montana.

Thank you again for your advice.

The 2 likely airports would be Nice or Marseille. I would guess that any flights from either of these would require at least 2 connections. I wonder if it would be easier to reverse the order of travel and fly into one of these airports, and home from Paris? Just a thought. You can look at options for multicity flights on Google Flights.

Based on your latest response, I would take the TGV to Avignon and rent a car from there, and then base in one of the towns in that area, with good access to Arles, Pont du Gard/Nimes, Les Baux and the Cote du Rhone. I'd also recommend the Luberon but that is a lot in just two days. I love the best region for Cote du Rhone, north of Avignon (Orange to Vaison la romaine) but unless you are into wines you might want to skip it for the sake of time (go into the Luberon).

You can then drive or train into the Nice area (and rely on public transport). I'd recommend Nice for teens, as there is more to do and the public transport connections are generally better. Just be watch your travel days as the Cannes Film Festival is in May (which impacts hotels in/around Cannes) and the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.

You can fly out of Nice in an open jaw as an end point. There are a number of connections through major European hubs as well as nonstops in May to North America (NYC, NJ, Philly, Atlanta, Montreal). The thing is, though, the one stop connections actually work best going to NCE, the timing on the return is not as a convenient. You could reverse the order of your journey.

I am taking TGV train Gare de Lyon to Aix (3+hrs), renting a car to drive to Riviera....just because I want to see the coast line. You could just as easily take the train to Avignon, spend a couple of days and then train to Nice, also about 3 hrs. Lots of flights from both Marseilles and Nice home. I am doing a flight Nice to Philadelphia then to San Diego on American....one stop.

If you are flying trans-Atlantic, I suggest a connecting flight from Paris (or any gateway city) on south, to Nice or Marseille. Do your touring of the south mostly by train, then work your way north to Paris for your departure home. The flights can be booked through a multi-destination search, save lots of time, and shouldn't be much more costly than point-to-point tickets. I suggest starting in the south because flying home from Paris will give you more civilized departure times.
PS: Two days in Paris might serve me on my annual trips to France. For a beginner it can overwhelm.

These are all great suggestions, thank you. I will consider swapping the order of our trip and going to Paris at the end of our stay. And thank you for the info about the best place to look for train tickets and which cities are the best to visit in the Riviera and Provence.

Hello again

If we are planning on flying to Nice next June and then visiting the Provence area, would you recommend touring the Nice and Monaco area by bus/ train, then renting a car in Nice and driving it to the Provence area and touring there by car?
After we are done in the Provence area, could we leave the car there and take a train back to Paris to visit for a few days, and then fly home from there?
I guess I am not clear on the easiest way or city to return a car in the Provence area and then catch a train in that same city to travel back to Paris, if that makes sense? Do rental car companies transport you to the train station once you return the rental car?

Thank you for any insight!:)

You can rent a car in Nice and return it elsewhere but you'll pay a dropoff fee. Might make more sense to take a TGV train from Nice to Avignon, rent the car there, and return it there before getting the train to Paris. I believe there are rental offices at the Avignon TGV station, a short way outside the city. Avignon doesn't have to be your base for Provence, you can drive to Arles or Nimes or wherever you choose.

abbyspear,
Within France, and with some of the larger rental cities, the dropoff fee isn't necessarily high if at a different city. It depends on where you rent and return. That being said, I concur that a train to say, Avignon, from Nice is a good idea. Avignon is a TGV stop from Paris' Gare de Lyon, and it would be very convenient to pick up and leave the car there. I wouldn't fly from Nice to wherever you go in Provence. From Paris to Nice, flying could be okay, but compare your train options re time and cost. You definitely won't need a car in Nice and environs, but it would be nice in Provence. I like Arles and St. Remy de Provence for a place to base myself. How many days do you have after leaving Paris?

Thank you @Dick and @Judy. Very helpful information!
We will be in the south of France and Provence area for only about 5 ish days before taking the train to Paris. Trying to prioritize where to go on our travels while there and see the most without feeling overwhelmed.

Gooster wrote: “Based on your latest response, I would take the TGV to Avignon and rent a car from there ….”

Gooster, I’m not sure why you said this, but I know why I’d say the same thing: I took a TGV from Paris-Nice in 1996. The train positively flew through the north of France, but for whatever reason, it slowed to a relative crawl getting to Nice (being particularly slow during the Marseille-Nice segment). I’m not sure exactly where it slowed to a crawl, but somewhere in the Rhône or Provence sounds about right.

Unless things have changed (or unless I took the wrong train), I’m with you: TGV to Rhône/Provence, and drive the rest of the way. (Peruse the train schedules for a more accurate take on where things turn from honey to molasses).

Cheers,
Don

The train slows down from Marseille to Nice because the tracks along the coast can’t handle the TGV.