Rome to Nice - please help

Rome deserves about 5 days. Don't miss Florence, suggest at least 3 days there. Nice is nice, but pales compared to Rome and Florence. You should be good using rail.

Trains going from Rome to Milan call at Florence and Bologna stations. Spending a couple of days in Florence doesn't mean you'll have to make the long train ride along the coast to reach Nice.You can take an high speed train from Florence to Milan and immediately transfer to a train to Nice.

The coastal route would make sense only if you were interested in visiting seaside villages like those in the Cinque Terre area.

Thanks so much for the input so far. I am a bit embarrassed to confess that I am not an art buff and other than the "famous" artworks, I don't really have much appreciation for spending all day looking at art in a museum. My 13-year old does not have a well-cultivated sense of refinement either :) I am more into beautiful scenery, picturesque and quaint old towns, and that sort of thing. So would love to visit places like Cinque Terre.

One further question: if we break our trip in Florence, will the train from Florence-Nice have reclining seats that lie flat or almost flat (like business class train seats). I looked up the first-class train option but while the pictures show them to be spacious, I can't tell if or how far they can recline.

Never heard of a train with reclining seats.

Incidentally, there are no direct trains from Florence to Nice. The best option along the coastal railway line implies a transfer in Pisa and another one in Genoa.

Unfortunately, you are going at a time of year when wandering around the countryside makes no sense because of the cold weather. As such, you are really stuck with spending your time in larger cities with indoor activities, such as museums. Unfortunately, again, it doesn't sound like you really like museums. I also wonder what you are going to do in the frigid temperatures in Nice? I've spent a winter on the Southern French coast and have never been so cold in my life.

If I were you, I'd abandon the idea of heading north from from Rome and instead head south. Visit Naples, Sicily or other very southern locations for at least some warmth. Then fly to Nice if that is your departure airport.

You have only 10 nights in Europe, which is 9 full days plus whatever usable time you can manage on your arrival day (that's 0 hours for me, but it sounds as if you are made of hardier stock). Weather-summary charts on Wikipedia indicate that Rome is likely to be chillier than the area around Nice, for what it's worth. It appears you should expect a bit less total rain in Rome but more days with rain.

If you rent a car in Italy and drop it off in France, you are virtually guaranteed to be hit with a huge international drop charge--hundreds of euros at the least. That leaves flying or the train as the most practical options. If you want to explore driving nonetheless, ViaMichelin.com can help with routes and driving-time estimates.

Menton, which is just over the border into France, is reportedly the warmest place in France in the winter. I don't travel to Europe at that time of year and cannot cite personal experience. You can find actual, day-by-day, historical weather statistics for Nice (not Menton) on timeanddate.com. The climate-summary charts on the two cities' Wikipedia pages indicate that Menton is a degree or two warmer at midday and several degrees warmer at night. Still looks chilly to me. Menton has a very picturesque historic center; it was extremely touristy at the time of my May 2017 visit; I don't know what the holiday period will be like, but the comparatively-warm climate there is well known by the British.

Since you have no interest in Nice's six (or more) art museums, I think you need to consider spending more time in Italy than in France. I imagine there will be more indoor things for you to do in Rome and the surrounding area, though of course a lot of the big-ticket attractions in Rome are open-air.

Once over on the Riviera you can zip along the coast easily by train. You'll need buses to get to most of the hill villages.

I think Florence is more physically attractive than Milan; either city should be lively enough to be OK at the end of the year. Smaller coastal places may be rather dead, I would think, which could be really disheartening if the weather is cold and wet.

I should have said that I HAVE to end up at Nice, because that is where we fly out of. We will meet a friend there and then fly out of there back to the US.

It also seems as if driving is out, based on the cross-border charges and also from seeing other threads where people have been hit with fines. So train it is. If there are no reclined seats, is there any benefit to springing for the extra fare for first class, or should we just go along with economy?

I bought first class tickets for our family of four to go from Monterosso to MIlan ( via Genoa) in 2010. The train was an Intercity (IC) train and the reserved seats were in a 6-person compartment, which was full. The seats in these compartments do not recline one bit, and there was it enough room on the overhead racks for all the luggage ( the other 2 people were Americans traveling to a wedding, and had extra luggage, for whichnthey apologized). In this case there was little benefit to the first class tickets. However, if you take a Frecce train, which covers the route between Rome---Florence---MIlan, these have first class cars with 2 seats on one side of the aisle and a single on the other. It is a good arrangement for a family of three.

You can learn more about types of trains and seating charts from the Man in Seat 61 website. Your son might like to explore that.

https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Rome.htm

For this and other reasons I advise you to skip the coastal route between Cinque Terre and Genoa on your way to Nice. This tracks along this rugged coast spend most of their time in tunnels, popping out here and there at a station in the small towns. You can see this for your self on Google Maps Street View, starting at Monterosso and working north. It gets better after Ventimiglia at the Italy-France border, and there are sections right along the water without tunnels.

If you take the route via Florence and MIlan, you will connect with the coast route at Genoa and still encounter some tunnels before Ventimiglia, but it is better. And between Rome, Florence, and MIlan you will be on the Frecce ("Arrow") high-speed trains with good seating in First Class. Or you could choose Italo trains, which have similar seat configurations. This is a separate company from Trenitalia, and their website is more user-friendly.

https://www.italotreno.it/en

The holiday period through New Years will be a busy travel time, so it is best to get your itinerary figured out soon so you can purchase your train tickets. I suggest more time in Rome than 3 days. Consider a daytrip to Pompeii while you are there.

I've spent nearly 3 years in Europe over the years, and I don't think I've ever had a first-class rail ticket. Really, the second-class seats are perfectly fine for nearly everyone, though they may not be super-modern if you end up taking local trains--but those don't necessarily have any first-class seats anyway. You can see photos of rail cars on Seat61.com. Keep scrolling down and check the captions for the photos to find the Italian trains.

Fares can be very reasonable if you buy non-refundable/non-changeable tickets, but that sometimes requires buying fairly early and always requires being absolutely certain of your travel plans.

You could also just rent a car for each country, or only for Italy, and then drop it in Italy before changing to train. I'd first do a thorough search of all the logistics involved (train route and schedules). At that time of year, I'd stick to cities--Rome, Florence, Genoa would be plenty.
How many days do you wish to spend in Nice, as that has to be deducted form the overall time, right?