We will be staying in Villefranche Sur Mer for 4 nights in June 2025. 2 adults and 1 child (3 year old).
Our top contenders for hotels are Welcome Hotel, Hotel De Le Darse and Hotel Provençal.
We are leaning toward the two latter options just given the price. We are looking for feedback on the hotels in particular their location to the main town. We undestand VF is on a hill so both require some walking but just looking for some feedback on how manageable that is! Thanks
The Welcome Hotel is pretty much in the center of town and on the same level as the harbor, very convenient to everything. Hotel Provençal is going to be close to the center of town, but at a higher elevation. You could walk on the sidewalks on the main roads without steps to get to the more central area, or the lanes between the buildings which will have steps (pedestrian only - but extremely charming). Hotel de la Darse looks lovely, but it is definitely further from the center of town, probably a 10 min walk. We stayed at the Welcome Hotel, so I’m basing this on where the other hotels are on the map. It’s probably a toss up. I don’t know that either one would have an edge based on location.
I can't comment on the other 2, but we stayed at the Welcome Hotel and found it met all our needs. We had a car, and parking was close by. The train station was a short walk away.
Being an owner of a vacation home in Villefranche sur mer (next door to the Welcome Hotel), both Hotel De le Darse and Provencal will require a lot of hilly walking to where the Welcome Hotel is. It is doable to walk from Hotel Darse with a stroller.
I am at Rick's forum to look into how to get from Paris to Mont Saint Michel for a day trip and low and behold someone is inquiring about Villefranche sur mer. Not too many people know about Villefranche sur mer so i am curious to why did you pick Villefranche sur mer instead of all the other towns along the French Riviera?
Because price was an issue for us and I wanted a balcony room overlooking the water that was close to the train station we stayed in Beaulieu Sur Mer at Hotel Frisia. For us it worked out perfect because we were using it as a homebase to explore the other towns. Staff was helpful, English-speaking, good breakfast, clean comfortable room definitely not fancy though . Train station was very close with a grocery store in between so many nights after a day of traveling we just stopped at the store and got bread, cheese, veggies, hummus and wine and ate on our balcony overlooking the harbor.
We stayed in an AirBnB somewhat near the top of the hill and found it quite easy to get around. Villefranche is a tiny town and if hills aren’t too hard, it doesn’t matter where you stay.
As of May the main route leading from the train station to the city was blocked by a landslide so everyone had to take the steep stairs down to the waterfront to enter the city. Very pretty and fun, but if you have a pram that could be an issue!
For a cheap and easy place to eat check out BAKARO. It’s a cafe/wine shop but the food there was well priced and tasty as well! Decent English from the workers as well.
Bonne journée ! Feel free to ask any other questions you have. My wife and I love that part of France.
