- When to go
- October 18° · 9 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€€price 5 of 5
- How many days
- 2–3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 6 km Nice
- Right now
Nice needs two days for the city itself — the old town and its market, the Promenade and the museums on Cimiez hill — and a third for the coast: from here the train reaches Monaco in 25 minutes and Menton in about 35. So you sleep in Nice and do the coast from it, without changing hotels.
The old town is not the Riviera of the postcards: its narrow streets with ochre facades feel Italian, and that is no accident, since Nice belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia until 1860. It shows most in the food — socca, a thin chickpea-flour pancake eaten from a stall in the old town, is the same dish as Ligurian farinata.
Trains to Monaco and Menton leave Nice-Ville several times an hour, and in the other direction Cannes is 35 to 40 minutes away. A ticket to Menton, the last town before the Italian border, is €7.70 one way. Heading east, sit on the right: that is the sea side.
Guides for Nice
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Nice in 2 days
→The market, the old town and Castle Hill on day one, the Cimiez museums on day two — and the two weekdays when this…
What to see in Nice
The old town and the Cours Saleya market
A flower and food market fills the Cours Saleya every morning but Monday, which belongs to antique and bric-a-brac dealers.
The Promenade des Anglais
Seven kilometres along the sea, from the airport to the Quai des États-Unis. The first path was paid for in 1820 by an English clergyman, Lewis Way, and members of the Anglican church in Nice. The beach below it is shingle all the way.
Castle Hill
A park on the hill between the old town and the port, with no castle but a view over the bay and the Promenade. Entry is free, and so is the lift up from the end of the Quai des États-Unis.
The Matisse Museum
In the Villa des Arènes, built in 1670–1685 in Cimiez. Matisse lived and worked in Nice from 1917 until his death in 1954, and the museum has been here since 1963.
The Chagall Museum
A national museum on the same hill, home to Chagall's Biblical Message cycle. Closed on Tuesdays.
Two things you probably did not know
Nice only became French in 1860, when the Kingdom of Sardinia handed it over along with Savoy in payment for French help in the war against Austria. Until then it was Italian, which still shows in the food and the street names.
The Promenade des Anglais is named after the English who paid for it. Wealthy British winter visitors raised money in 1820 to build a path along the sea, because they found walking on the shingle uncomfortable.
Ready for Nice?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Nice — day trips or weekends.
France
→From Paris the TGV reaches Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg in about two hours — France is chosen by direction, not by city
Italy
→The cities on the high-speed line are an hour or two apart; the coast, Matera and the Tuscan hills lie off it
Spain
→A country where dinner is at ten and the city wakes up as everywhere else turns the lights off
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Genoa, Turin and Cinque Terre
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Nice if you have been.
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