Nice 3 Day Itinerary

The ticket machine at Nice airport sells a round-trip tram ticket for 10 euros, and it is a quiet rip-off: the same tram into the city center costs 1.70 euros each way if you buy it from any regular Lignes d’Azur machine at a tram stop instead. That one detail saves you more than half the cost of getting into town, and it sets the tone for how this itinerary treats Nice, a city where knowing the local shortcuts matters more than checking off a list of famous names.

Day 1: Old Nice and the hill above it

Skip the hunt for a specific breakfast cafe on Place Massena and instead walk into Vieux Nice, the old town, where the morning market at Cours Saleya is already in full swing by mid-morning with flower stalls, produce, and the socca vendors that have defined this city’s food identity for a century. Chez Theresa, working from the same stall since 1925, still cooks socca, a chickpea flour pancake, on a wood-fired copper pan and sells it hot in a paper cone for around three euros; that is a better first meal in Nice than any hotel breakfast buffet. Look for pissaladiere too, a bread tart topped with slow-cooked onions, anchovies, and black olives, since Nice food genuinely revolves around these three or four dishes rather than generic French bistro fare.

From the market, the narrow streets of Vieux Nice are worth wandering without a fixed plan, and the Baroque Chapelle de la Misericorde on Cours Saleya is a good five-minute stop if it’s open. Then climb Castle Hill, Colline du Chateau, where the actual “castle” has been ruins since the 18th century, demolished by Louis XIV’s forces, so don’t expect a standing structure. The genuine reward up here is the Cascade du Chateau, an artificial waterfall built in 1885 to mark the arrival of a new water supply to the city, not any garden with a fabricated name, and the panoramic view over the Baie des Anges and the old town rooftops from the same terrace is one of the best free views on the French Riviera.

Head back down for dinner at a proper Nicois table serving daube de boeuf or a real salade nicoise, which by local convention contains raw vegetables, tuna or anchovies, and hard-boiled egg, never boiled potatoes or green beans despite what you’ll see on tourist-menu versions elsewhere in France. Finish with a glass of wine at one of the small bars tucked into Old Nice’s side streets rather than chasing a specific address that may no longer be trading; this neighborhood turns over its bars and cafes often enough that a name from a few years back is a coin flip.

Day 2: Art on the hill, and the Promenade at its best

Nice has a genuinely strong museum lineup for a city its size, and this is the day to use it. The Musee National Marc Chagall holds the largest public collection of Chagall’s work anywhere, built around a series of paintings on biblical themes the artist made specifically for this museum, and it rewards an unhurried hour rather than a rushed pass-through. From there, head up to Cimiez, the hillside district where the Musee Matisse sits inside a 17th-century villa surrounded by olive groves, tracing Matisse’s work from early academic pieces through the cutout period he pioneered while living in Nice at the end of his life. The adjacent archaeological museum, built around genuine Roman baths and amphitheater ruins, rounds out the visit if you have time, and Cimiez itself, with its Roman remains and Belle Epoque hotels, is worth the walk even if you skip a museum ticket entirely.

Save the late afternoon for the Promenade des Anglais itself, the seven-kilometer seafront walkway that gave Nice its reputation as a resort town in the 19th century. Walking or renting a bike along the promenade toward sunset, with the Baie des Anges curving away in both directions, is one of those simple things that photographs undersell. Pebble beaches line most of the promenade rather than sand, so if you’re planning to swim, bring water shoes; Niçois pebbles are not gentle on bare feet.

For dinner, look for a genuinely well-reviewed Mediterranean or seafood restaurant in the Carre d’Or district rather than assuming any single named spot still holds a Michelin star; star ratings shift year to year and restaurants close or change hands, so check current listings before booking rather than trusting an old recommendation. The Carre d’Or’s bars and rooftop spots make for a reasonable second half of the evening if you want a livelier night out than Old Nice offers.

Day 3: Monaco and Eze in one day

The train from Nice-Ville to Monaco takes about 25 minutes and runs frequently along the coast, making this the easiest day trip on the Riviera. In Monaco, the Prince’s Palace and its changing of the guard, the Oceanographic Museum that Jacques Cousteau once directed, and a walk past the Monte Carlo Casino and the Formula One street circuit markings cover the essentials in a morning without needing a car.

In the afternoon, a short bus ride or taxi takes you up to Eze, a medieval village perched on a rocky outcrop above the sea that looks almost too dramatic to be real from a distance. The narrow stone streets climb steeply, and the botanical garden at the village’s summit gives one of the single best coastal views in this part of France, arguably better than anything in Monaco itself. The Fragonard perfume factory at the base of the village runs free tours explaining how Grasse-region perfumers actually work, and it’s a legitimately interesting twenty minutes rather than just a shopping stop, though you will walk out through a boutique.

Take the train back to Nice for a final dinner somewhere with a sea view along the western end of the promenade, and treat this as the moment to try pan bagnat if you haven’t already, a tuna, egg, and vegetable sandwich soaked in olive oil that locals eat on the beach rather than at a table, best bought from a bakery rather than a sit-down restaurant.

Practical notes

Buy a rechargeable Lignes d’Azur card from any tram stop machine or a tabac newsstand displaying the sign rather than paying the inflated round-trip fare at the airport ticket machine; the card costs 2 euros refundable and each ride is 1.70 euros with free transfers for 74 minutes in the same direction. French is the working language everywhere, but English is common enough in tourist zones that you won’t struggle. Pack for pebble beaches, not sand, and if you’re visiting in July or August, book restaurant tables and museum tickets for Chagall and Matisse a few days ahead, since both museums and the better Old Nice restaurants fill up fast during peak summer.