Touring the Best of the French Riviera in Three Days
After our tour through Italy (read about that here), Alyssa and I spent a lovely three (and a half if we’re counting travel) days in the South of France along the French Riviera. I have previously travelled to Paris (read about my nine days in Paris here), but had not explored the country beyond that. It’s almost hard to believe that the South of France and Paris are in the same country. The climate, foliage, architecture, and even the culture are, in my opinion, drastically different, making the two hard to compare. I personally loved the South of France and would go back in a heartbeat. In this post I have outlined what we did, where we stayed, and what we ate during our three days in the South of France. I hope you all enjoy!
Before we get going with the day-by-day itinerary, I’d like to share where we stayed during our time in the South of France. To get to France, we took the train from Milan’s Centrale Station along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea – a spectacular train ride, the views were stunning – to Nice, arriving at the Nice-Ville station, which was conveniently located right up the street from the hostel that we stayed at for the duration of time that we were in France. We chose Nice as our home base for this leg of our European adventure because it was closer to Spain (our next trip destination), it was a quick train ride away from beautiful towns and cities such as Èze, Menton, Cannes, and Monaco, and it was fairly priced and very beautiful.
Where We Stayed
We stayed at the Anteres Hostel in Nice and had a great experience. We opted to stay in a multi-bed mixed dorm (because it was cheaper), but this hostel also offers private rooms and all-female dorms if you’re more comfortable with that kind of arrangement. The property itself is quite quirky and pretty basic, but it was clean, had a good location, and had all the basic amenities like a kitchen, luggage storage, wifi, towels, and a continental breakfast. The hostel also had a charming courtyard and a large deck where you could sit to eat, read, or socialize.
Day One: Èze + Monaco
For our first full day on the Côte d’Azur we took the bus from Nice to the charming town of Èze, which is situated essentially on a cliff that overlooks the sea. Before we caught the bus we of course had to stop for a croissant (when in France, am I right?). We found a lovely little boulangerie around the corner from the bus stop called Boulangerie Maritime and each picked out a treat. I treated myself to a chocolate and almond croissant. It did not disappoint!
We opted to get off the bus one stop before Èze because 1. the bus was so ridiculously crowded that we were dripping sweat from being packed in, and 2. we wanted to take in some of the stunning views from the path along the road. The walk into the picturesque town of Èze was a bit longer than we had thought, but we were more than happy to be off that sweaty bus.
What We Did
We spent our day in Èze wandering around the old cobblestone streets, browsing in the shops, taking in the stunning views, and eating delicious food. We visited Le Jardin Exotique, which has stunning views of the sea and the coast. It was seven euros each to tour, which we thought was reasonable to see the views.
For lunch we sat on the patio at Le Pinocchio for lunch and followed that up with a delicious gelato from Le Palais des Glaces next door.
There’s a stunning château in Èze called Château Eza, which looks like a place right out of a James Bond movie. I’m going to set it as a goal to stay there one day, even if it’s just for the night. We spotted the stone château jutting out of the cliff’s edge on our walk into Èze. At first we thought it was someones home!
Once we had seen all the sites we hopped to see in Èze, we hopped on another bus that took us down the cliff side to the train station where we caught a train to Monaco. The bus ride down the cliff was insane. As you can imagine, it was an incredibly windy ride. It quite literally felt like we were on a roller coaster. With every turn the packed bus would erupt with “ahhhs”. Once we finally reached the station everyone cheered for our bus driving for navigating the winding road so well.
The towns along the French Riviera are incredibly accessible to one another with just a short train ride to get from one place to another. We leaned on this service to transport us along the coast the entire time we were in France. I often think about how amazing it would be to have a train system as efficient and robust as the one in Europe here in Canada. Travel would be so much easier and cheaper! A girl can dream.
No surprise here, but we didn’t have big plans in Monaco for the simple reason that we were recent graduates with small budgets. That being said, we did take the time to explore this (very small) country. We saw Port Hercule – the port where all the mega-yachts are docked – and visited the famous Monte Carlo Casino. Now, neither Alyssa nor I are gamblers, but the casino has this deal where by paying the 18 euro entrance fee you receive a 10 euro credit that can either be spent on a drink inside the casino or the slot machines. We decided to spend our credits on the slot machines because we weren’t planning to do any gambling with our own money. I struck out on the slot machines (I think I cashed out the night with 60 cents or something), but Alyssa won big! She turned her 10 euro credit into 50 euros! I was pretty impressed.
After our casino experience, we made our way back to the train station for the short ride back to Nice.
Day Two: Menton
Day two on the French Riviera and we were off to another charming coastal town: Menton. Being located close to the Italian-French border, a lot of Italian influence can be seen here. Menton’s Old Town is full of charming, colourful buildings, winding cobblestone streets, buildings covered in climbing plants, and beautiful views of the sea making it a must-see stop on the French Riviera. It is also a quick and easy train ride away from Nice.
What We Did
Our day in Menton began with scoping out the best-looking boulangerie to source our daily croissant from. With a bit of research and after popping in and out of a few options, we landed on Atelier Boulangerie. Atelier Boulangerie is right across the street from the sea, so we enjoyed our croissants sea-side that morning.
Menton is the perfect town to visit without a plan because a day can easily be filled simply by wandering and admiring the scenery around you. The Old Town is built up a hill, so as you continue to wander you gain increasingly stunning views of the sea. At the base of the Old Town is the Rue Saint-Michel, a cobbled street lined with shops – tailored towards tourists – filled with lovely French soaps, chocolates, pottery and other products. This is a great street to wander along if you are in the market for a gift to bring home to friends or family or are looking for a French memento for yourself. I stocked up on some Marseilles soaps to bring home with me.
After wandering down Rue Saint-Michel for a while, we began travelling upwards along the winding streets through the Old Town in search of the Basilica St. Michel, a Baroque Roman Catholic basilica built in 1653. We were even lucky enough to witness a wedding party having their photographs taken in the ocean view square out in front of the basilica’s entrance. Quite a crowd amassed to watch the wedding party move from the square into the basilica for the ceremony. Lucky for us, the ceremony was quite quick and we were able to view the inside of the basilica before continuing to wander. Beside the basilica is another notable landmark, La Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs, built between 1680 and 1687.
The next stop on our journey through the Old Town was the Cimetière du Vieux Château. Sitting at the top of the Old Town, this cemetery has stunning views of the sea, mountains and town from above. If you are looking for a quiet place to take some beautiful, scenic photographs, this is it.
We ate a delicious lunch at an Italian restaurant called Le Stanley in the Old Town. Alyssa had been on the hunt for a seafood pasta. We wandered around checking the menus of various different restaurants looking for the perfect pasta, which we found here. The food was great and the service was excellent. After our main course, we indulged in a delicious crème brûlée as well. No regrets about that!
We capped off our day in Menton with suntanning and a swim at the Plage du Marché before taking the train back to Nice for a dinner in at our hostel.
Day Three: Old Nice
We saved our exploration of Old Nice for our final day in the South of France. We had an overnight bus to Barcelona leaving from Nice that evening, so we thought staying close to “home” for our final day would be best. Like the other towns we visited along the French Riviera, Nice was incredibly charming and had its own unique offerings.
What We Did
Vieux Nice, or Old Nice, is – architecturally speaking – quite similar to Menton. The side streets are narrow and cobbled and the buildings are charmingly colourful and old. That being said, Nice had its own charm and character that set it apart from the other towns on the French Riviera.
Like our other mornings in France, this one began with the hunt for the perfect croissant. We ended up purchasing our pastries from Boulangerie Jeannot just one street up from the water. The boulangerie is on Rue Saint-Françios de Paule, which happens to connect with the street that the Marché Aux Fleurs (flower market) is located on, Cours Saleya. The Marché Aux Fleurs is a large, open-aired market with stall after stall of fresh cut flowers, local produce and food products. Needless to say, I really enjoyed browsing the market. Sadly I wasn’t able to buy any flowers to bring home, but it was still fun to explore.
Once we had gotten our fill of flowers, we set off to climb Castle Hill. Castle Hill is named for a military citadel that stood on the hill from the 11th to the 18th century. In present time, tourists can climb the hill via a very long flight of stairs to take in stunning views of Nice, the mountains, and the sea. A lookout with a beautiful waterfall can be found at the top of the climb as well. Alyssa and I huffed and puffed our way up the stairs to take in the views, which were really incredible. If you are planning a trip to Nice, I would suggest carving out some time to visit Castle Hill.
Sufficiently hungry from all the stairs on Castle Hill, we started trekking through Old Nice in search of lunch. When I am planning a trip or am away travelling my mom likes to do research about the places I am visiting and send me recommendations. One that she sent for Nice was René Socca. For those who are unfamiliar, socca is a thin, unleavened pancake or crêpe made using chickpea flour. Although it was invented in Italy, Nice is also known for its socca. I’ve got to be honest, this was not my favourite meal on our trip, but it was still fun to try a food that Nice is known for. René Socca of course sells socca but also has a variety of other sides to choose from. The downside to this meal was that everything we ordered was essentially fried and therefore very greasy which made the food quite heavy. All the grease really got to us and we had a hard time finishing the food. The soccas were also enormous so in hindsight we could have just ordered one to share instead of each ordering a full one for ourselves plus sides. Lesson learned!
If you read my blog post about our time in Italy you may remember that we experienced a tragedy in Venice – Alyssa’s gelato took a tumble and did not recover. Ever since that tragedy Alyssa had been on a mission to find a watermelon gelato to replace the one she’d lost, which turned out to be exceedingly difficult. The first gelato place we stumbled on had about a million different flavours, watermelon being one, but it was also incredibly busy. We decided that we would try a few of the near by places first with the hope that they’d be less busy. While the other places did prove to be less busy, none of them sold watermelon gelato, so we made our was back to Glacier Fenocchio and joined the mob to wait to be served. I would like to say that this ended happily for Alyssa, but unfortunately, by the time we reached the front of the line they had sold out of watermelon gelato. Just our luck. We still had some excellent gelato, just not what we had been looking for. And so, the hunt for watermelon gelato continued another day…
Our day in Vieux Nice ended with a sandwich from Boulangerie Jeannot and a swim in the sea at Plage publique de l’opera. We then had to head back to our hostel to grab our bags and prepare for our overnight bus ride to Barcelona. Stay tuned for my post about Barcelona where I will outline the pro (yes just one) and cons of taking an overnight bus.
And so ends our time in the South of France. What a spectacular little corner of the world! We packed in a good amount of sight-seeing in just three short days, but there is so much left to experience and discover. I hope to return one day to continue my exploration of the Côte d’Azur.
Thanks for following along!
xx
Ashley