2 Days on the Riviera from Nice
Two Days: One City Evening, One Coastal Town, No Third Option
Two days isn’t enough to see Nice properly and still day-trip, so stop trying. This plan gives you one evening to get oriented in Nice and one full day on the coast. Pick a single destination for day two and commit to it; people who try to squeeze Monaco, Èze, and Villefranche into one afternoon end up seeing all three from a train window and none of them properly.
| Day | Focus | Biggest cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nice orientation: Vieux Nice, Castle Hill | Free, plus socca |
| 2 | Villefranche (easy) or Monaco (full day) | EUR2-3 Villefranche train, or EUR17-20 Monaco extras |
Book these before you go
- A Nice hotel room for your one night in the city, since Vieux Nice and Carré d’Or book out fast in summer.
- A Villefranche or Monaco half-day tour if you’d rather not plan the train yourself.
Day 1: Land, get oriented, one good evening
Tram Line 2 gets you from the airport to Jean-Médecin in 20-30 minutes. The catch: airport ticket machines only sell a €10 round-trip fare, not the €1.70 single; check the Lignes d’Azur app before you land if you want the cheaper option. On a two-day trip, just buy the round trip and stop thinking about it.
Spend the afternoon walking Vieux Nice with no fixed plan and grab socca for lunch, then climb Castle Hill via the free lift for sunset over the Baie des Anges. There’s no actual castle up there; Louis XIV had it demolished in 1706 specifically so it could never threaten France again, but the view is the best free thing in the city. Dinner in the old town, away from the terraces directly on Cours Saleya, which trade on the view rather than the cooking.
For the full breakdown of Nice itself, neighborhoods, restaurant names, museum hours, see our Nice guide and the Riviera day trips guide for how the day trips below scale on a longer trip.
Day 2: Pick one, and go all in
Option A, Villefranche-sur-Mer, for the lower-effort day. Five to ten minutes by train , roughly €2-3 one-way, the easiest and closest trip on the coast. The old town’s covered lanes and the Chapelle Saint-Pierre, decorated inside by Jean Cocteau in 1957, make for a genuinely slow, unhurried morning, and the harbor is one of the deepest natural anchorages on the Mediterranean, which keeps the water clearer than Nice’s own beaches. Climb to the free Citadelle Saint-Elme courtyard, then take a long lunch by the water instead of rushing back. This is a half-day trip, so you’ll have the afternoon free to return to Nice for a slower second look at whatever you missed on day one.
Option B, Monaco, for the full-day option. 7 to 25 minutes by train (23 minutes average), roughly €6-7 one-way, with 55 or more trains a day. Give Monaco the whole day if you pick it; it’s genuinely too much to rush. Walk the old town and the palace square (the changing of the guard runs at 11:55am daily, free to watch), and skip the Casino de Monte-Carlo’s €17 entry fee unless gambling actually interests you, since you’ll also need a passport, a real dress code, and to be over 18 to get past the door. The Belle Époque exterior is worth seeing regardless, for free, from the plaza.
Either way, come back to Nice for a final dinner and a slow walk on the Promenade des Anglais before the airport run. Watch your bag specifically at the Grand Arénas tram stop on the way out; it’s a known spot for pickpockets working the ticket machines, and that’s not how you want to end a good two days.