Nice, and everywhere a day trip reaches.
Which Monaco tour actually stops in Monte-Carlo. Whether the Èze village bus is worth it. What a perfume workshop in Grasse really costs. Every tour that leaves Nice, read and ranked.
The tours travellers book most often out of Nice.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually been and rated them — not by what any operator would like you to see first.
1
French Riviera in One Day
Ride from Nice to Èze, Monaco, Antibes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Cannes, with sea views and a Fragonard perfume stop.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
Eze, Monaco, & Monte-Carlo Half-Day Trip
from $42
3
1-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche Bay
from $33
4
Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender Tour
from $129
5
1 or 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $28
6
★ Walking Tour of Old Nice and Castle Hill
from $39
7
Exclusive Guided Tour in a One-of-a-Kind Electric Car
from $56
8
NO DIET CLUB – Unique Local Food in Nice !
from $81
The old town is six streets wide and takes a morning.
Ochre walls, green shutters, laundry above the alleys and a socca pan coming out of the oven every few minutes. Cours Saleya runs flowers and produce Tuesday to Sunday and turns into an antiques market on Monday — worth knowing before you plan the morning around it.
Every famous name on this coast is a day trip from Nice.
Monaco, Èze, Cannes, Antibes, Saint-Paul: none of them are in Nice, all of them are reachable before lunch. Here is what each one actually takes, and which tour saves you the transfer.
Monaco, Monte-Carlo and Èze in one sweep
The standard Riviera coach day: the hilltop village first, then the Rock and the casino square. Booked as one trip because the three sit on the same road, not because anyone decided they belong together.
Cannes, Antibes and the Cap
Cannes is thirty-odd minutes by train and Antibes barely twenty, so a guided day buys you the Cap road and the old ports rather than the transfer. Mid-May the Croisette belongs to the film festival and nobody else.
Inland: Provence, the gorge, the lavender
Two and a half hours each way to the Verdon or the Valensole plateau, which is why these run as full days and why the lavender ones only exist from late June to the first week of August.
How far each name really is from Nice
Saint-TropezWhat a day out of Nice actually costs.
Every reviewed tour sorted by its own starting price, with the most-rated pick in each band. The cheap end is not the thin end here — some of the best mornings on this coast are the market and old-town walks.
Old-town and market walks, the hop-on bus, short harbour cruises, a perfume-shop visit in town.
The half-day Monaco and Èze runs, the Cannes–Antibes coast day, wine afternoons behind Nice.
Full days inland — the Verdon gorge, the lavender plateau, Saint-Tropez by boat — and small-group everything.
Private cars with a driver for the day, and the trips where the price is really eight people splitting one vehicle.
The best view in Nice costs nothing.
Colline du Château has had no château on it since 1706. What it has is the whole Baie des Anges on one side, the port on the other, a waterfall, and a lift up from the eastern end of the Promenade so you do not have to take the stairs. Free, open every day, and the reason half the photographs of this city look the way they do.
- 1★ Walking Tour of Old Nice and Castle Hillfrom $39
- 2Nice Small-Group Walking Food Tour with Local Specialties & Wine Tastingfrom $97
- 3Food and Wine Old Town Guided Walking Tourfrom $99
Six days that fill a first week in Nice.
One from the old town, one from the water, one over the border, one up a hill, one inland and one that is mostly lunch. Between them they cover a week without repeating a view.
Three things the Riviera does that nowhere else does.
Coast roads and old towns exist everywhere. Blending your own scent an hour from the beach, buying flowers in a square that becomes an antiques market on Mondays, and reaching a sovereign city-state on a suburban train do not.
Making Your Own Scent
Grasse has been the perfume town since the tanners of the sixteenth century started scenting leather gloves, and three houses — Fragonard, Molinard, Galimard — still run their factories with the door open. The workshops let you blend and bottle your own, and they keep the formula on file, so a refill is a phone call rather than another flight. Molinard also keeps a counter in Nice itself if the day is short.
- 1Molinard Parfums Nice: Discovery Perfume Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 915 reviews
- 2Monaco & Eze Small-Group Day Trip with Perfumery Visit from Nice★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 847 reviews
- 3Fragonard Eze: Perfume Making Class and Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 743 reviews
The Cours Saleya Morning
The long stone terrace behind the Promenade runs flowers and produce six mornings a week, then clears entirely on Monday for an antiques market that has nothing to do with the flowers. Come before ten for the stalls and after eleven for the cafés; the socca stands work the far end and stop when the batter runs out, which is earlier than you think.
- 1Italian Market Shopping Small Group Day Tour from Nice★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 128 reviews
- 2Wine Tasting, Provencal Market, Cannes and St Paul de Vence★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 56 reviews
- 3Full-Day Italian Market, Menton, & La Turbie Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 28 reviews
The Coast, From a Boat
The corniche roads were cut for carriages and they show you the coast in slices. An hour on the water gives it to you whole: Mont Boron, the Villefranche roadstead deep enough for cruise ships, Cap Ferrat with the villas that only face the sea. Short bay cruises leave from the port; the longer ones run west to the Lérins or east towards Monaco.
- 11-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,747 reviews
- 2Round-Trip Transportation to Saint Tropez by Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,245 reviews
- 3Mediterranean Coastal Sightseeing Cruise from Nice★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 887 reviews
Monaco is twenty minutes away and a different country by dinner.
The casino square lights up at dusk, the Rock quietens down, and the last train back to Nice runs late enough that you do not need a car. Evening trips out here are usually the same route as the daytime ones with better light and fewer coaches.
Book these before you fly to Nice.
Most things here can wait until you are sitting on the Promenade with a coffee. These four cannot — they run on flowering seasons, small studios and a calendar that has nothing to do with your flight.
- 01Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender TourThe Valensole plateau flowers from late June and is cut by the first week of August. Outside that window the fields are green stubble.
- 02Molinard Parfums Nice: Discovery Perfume WorkshopA blending workshop seats a dozen people at a bench. In July and August the Grasse houses fill their sessions days out.
- 03Gorges du Verdon Shared Tour from NiceTwo and a half hours each way means one coach a day, and it does not run all year.
- 04Round-Trip Transportation to Saint Tropez by BoatThe boat across the bay only runs in season, and it is the only version of this trip that is not three hours in traffic.
October is the wettest month in Nice, and it barely matters.
The rain here arrives in short heavy bursts rather than a whole grey week, and the best answers are inside anyway: a blending bench in Grasse, a tasting room behind the port, a covered market, a kitchen. None of these cancel for weather.
By where the day starts on this coast
Vieux Nice20 tours
Castle Hill7 tours
Villefranche-sur-Mer30 tours
Èze73 tours
Monaco & Monte-Carlo88 tours
Cannes41 tours
Antibes19 tours
Saint-Paul-de-Vence23 tours- Everywhere else on the coast →
The newest tours added out of Nice.
All recent →
Saint Paul de Vence, Antibes, Cannes tour in a Renault E-Tech
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French Riviera Colorado & Var West by Train (from Cannes/Nice)
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Citroen Mehari Tour of Beaches, Villages and Lovely Views
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Eze, Monaco & Monte-Carlo Private Full-Day Tour
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Stand-Up Paddle & Snorkeling with Local Guide near Nice
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West Coast and Countryside shared & Guided tour from Nice
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Monte Carlo -Eze- From Villefranche Harbor -Private Tour
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Verdon Gorge: The Grand canyon of Europe, Lake and Lavender
Read our review →