5 Days on the Riviera from Nice
Five Days: Four Towns, One Base, Zero Car Rentals
This is the same spine as our 4-day itinerary , Nice, Villefranche, Monaco, Èze, with a fifth day added for Antibes, the trip most short visits skip and shouldn’t. By day five you’ll have used the coastal train enough to see why a car would only slow this down.
| Day | Focus | Biggest cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nice orientation | Free, plus socca |
| 2 | Villefranche-sur-Mer | EUR2-3 train |
| 3 | Monaco, full day | EUR20 Oceanographic Museum |
| 4 | Èze village | EUR7-8 Jardin Exotique |
| 5 | Antibes | EUR5-8 train, Picasso Museum extra |
Book these before you go
- A Nice hotel room for your nights in the city, since Vieux Nice and Carré d’Or book out fast in summer.
- Monaco’s Oceanographic Museum ticket if you’re visiting in peak season, when the ticket line gets real.
- An Antibes Picasso Museum ticket if you’d rather not queue at the Château Grimaldi.
Day 1: Arrival and Nice orientation
Tram Line 2 covers the airport-to-centre run in 20-30 minutes; the machines at the airport only sell a €10 round trip rather than the €1.70 single fare, so sort the Lignes d’Azur app in advance if you want the cheaper option across five days of tram rides.
Afternoon in Vieux Nice, socca for lunch, Castle Hill via the free lift for sunset. There’s no castle up there anymore; Louis XIV had it razed in 1706 so it could never threaten France again, but the view is the best free thing in the city. Dinner a street or two back from the Cours Saleya terraces, which are priced for the view rather than the cooking. For the full neighborhood-level breakdown of Nice itself, see our Nice guide ; this trip is built around the towns outside it.
Day 2: Villefranche-sur-Mer
Five to ten minutes by train , roughly €2-3 one-way, the easiest trip on this coast. Villefranche’s harbor is one of the deepest natural anchorages on the Mediterranean, which keeps the water clearer than central Nice. Wander the covered old-town lanes, see the Chapelle Saint-Pierre (decorated inside by Jean Cocteau in 1957, small entry fee), and climb the free Citadelle Saint-Elme courtyard. It’s a half-day trip; use the afternoon back in Nice for the beach (pebble, not sand, water shoes recommended) or a slower pass through the old town.
Day 3: Monaco, the full day
7 to 25 minutes by train (23 minutes average), roughly €6-7 one-way, 55 or more trains a day. Walk the old town and palace square; the changing of the guard runs at 11:55am daily, free to watch. The Oceanographic Museum (around €20), directed by Jacques Cousteau for over three decades, earns the admission fee for anyone even mildly curious about marine science; stacking it with the palace apartments is cheaper on the French Riviera Pass . The Casino de Monte-Carlo charges roughly €17 for the gaming rooms and requires a passport or ID, a real dress code, and 18+, so skip it if gambling isn’t the actual goal; the Belle Époque exterior costs nothing to admire from the plaza. Eat dinner back in Nice rather than near the casino square, where prices run high for the same quality.
Day 4: Èze village
No direct train; take bus 82 (Lignes d’Azur) or the regional 602 from Nice’s Vauban bus station, about 30 minutes, every 30-45 minutes on weekdays (check the 602’s Sunday schedule, it can thin out badly). Or train to Èze-sur-Mer, then bus 83 uphill, or the steep Chemin de Nietzsche path if you’d rather hike it.
Give the village two to three hours: a free Fragonard perfume factory tour, and the Jardin Exotique at the summit (roughly €7-8), a cactus garden in the ruins of the old château with the best cliffside view on this stretch of the Riviera. The opinion, stated plainly: Èze beats a half-day in Monaco for most first-timers, same postcard hilltop-village payoff, a fraction of the time, no casino dress code. Go in the morning; the climb up from Èze-sur-Mer in midday summer heat is miserable rather than scenic.
Day 5: Antibes
20 to 25 minutes by train, roughly €5-8 one-way, and the trip that gets undersold next to Monaco and Cannes. The Musée Picasso sits in the Château Grimaldi, the clifftop fortress where Picasso actually worked for several months in 1946, and it’s a tighter, less crowded museum visit than most Riviera art stops. The Marché Provençal, a covered morning market a few streets back, is genuinely less touristy than Nice’s own Cours Saleya and a strong lunch stop. Walk the old ramparts along the sea, and if there’s time left, Fort Carré, the star-shaped 16th-century fort on the point, is a short walk beyond the old town.
Come back to Nice for a final dinner. If you want one splurge across the whole trip, Chantecler at the Négresco is the two-Michelin-star option; a simple Niçoise meal in Vieux Nice sends you off just as well for a fraction of the cost. Watch your bag closely at the Grand Arénas tram stop on the way to the airport; it’s a known spot for pickpockets working the ticket machines, not the way you want to close out five good days.