Offbeat Riviera from Nice: 7 Days
A Full Week: Six Days of Trains, One Day of Wine You Can’t Buy Anywhere Else
Seven days is enough to run the entire coastal network, dip inland to the Alps, and still close with something almost nobody plans for: an actual vineyard, inside Nice’s own city limits, that most visitors never learn exists. Days one through six repeat the same city, village-plus-swim, Monaco, Antibes-Cannes, Menton, and Alps sequence the shorter trips build toward; Day 7 is the one none of them fit.
Book These Before You Go
- Book a room near Nice-Ville station ahead of summer; a full week this rail-dependent fills fast.
- Book a Monaco day tour for day 3 if you’d rather have the palace and harbour history narrated.
- Reserve the Train des Merveilles for day 6; the 9:32am departure is the only guided run and fills fast in summer.
- Book a Bellet vineyard tour for day 7; Château de Bellet’s tasting slots are limited and genuinely sell out in season.
| Day | Focus | Est. cost per person (no lodging) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nice: Promenade, old town, Castle Hill | ~€25-35 |
| 2 | Èze village, Villefranche swim | ~€25-35 plus bus/train fare |
| 3 | Monaco: palace, Oceanographic Museum | ~€20-30 plus train fare |
| 4 | Antibes: Picasso Museum, Cannes: La Croisette | ~€25-35 plus train fare |
| 5 | Menton: old town, Musée Jean Cocteau | ~€15-25 plus train fare |
| 6 | Train des Merveilles into the Roya Valley | ~€17 plus train fare |
| 7 | Bellet vineyard tasting or a slow flex day | ~€20-30 |
Day 1: Nice, Start to Finish
Tram Line 2 from either airport terminal, 20 to 30 minutes, €1.70 a single (the airport machines default to a €10 round-trip, so get the Lignes d’Azur app sorted before you need the cheap fare again). Spend the day on the Promenade des Anglais, Vieux Nice’s lanes, Cours Saleya’s market (daily except Monday, when it’s antiques instead), and Castle Hill at golden hour, free public lift, no actual castle since 1706, and still arguably the best free view on this coast.
Day 2: Èze, Then Down to Swim
Bus 82 from Vauban, about 30 minutes, €1.70, no train option since Èze sits at 427m above the rail line. Go early, before the tour buses, and budget €8 to €10 for the Jardin Exotique if the view over the Riviera hills is worth it. Eat before or during the climb; the restaurants up top know you’ve got nowhere else to go.
Down via bus 83 (or the steep 2.5-mile Nietzsche path if it’s not high summer) to Èze-sur-Mer, then a short train to Villefranche-sur-Mer for a swim in some of the calmest water on this stretch of coast. Water shoes; the pebbles don’t get gentler for scenery.
Day 3: Monaco, the Full Day
TER trains run 7 to 25 minutes from Nice (roughly 55 a day), about €6.50 to €7 one-way, into a country you could walk end to end in under an hour. Give it the whole day: the Prince’s Palace, the Oceanographic Museum, the harbour’s genuinely absurd superyacht density. A real passport gets you into the Casino de Monte-Carlo’s interior if that’s on the list (no photocopies, no digital ID, 18+, and the dress code tightens after roughly 7 to 8pm). Skip it and you still haven’t wasted the day.
Day 4: Antibes, Then Cannes
Antibes is 16 to 23 minutes out, around €7 to €8, home to the Picasso Museum inside the Château Grimaldi where he actually worked, €12 admission, closed Mondays. Cannes is a further 7-minute hop down the same line, or 35 minutes and about €10 direct. For 2026: Cannes caps cruise arrivals to sub-1,000-passenger ships and 6,000 daily cruise visitors as of January 1st, so La Croisette reads calmer on cruise days than it used to. Climb Le Suquet for the view over the bay before the train back.
Day 5: Menton
Menton is 30 to 35 minutes out, roughly €7 one-way, worth the trip precisely because it isn’t competing with Nice or Cannes for attention. Mid-February to early March lands you inside some version of the Fête du Citron (the 2026 edition, its 92nd, runs February 14 to March 1, theme “Merveilles du Vivant”). Otherwise, wander Vieux Menton’s stacked pastel lanes and the Musée Jean Cocteau, a Rudy Ricciotti building holding the Séverin Wunderman donation, €5 entry, closed Tuesdays, free the first Sunday of the month.
Day 6: The Train des Merveilles
This is where the week stops being a coastal loop and turns inland, 120km up from Nice-Ville past Sospel and Breil-sur-Roya to Saorge (officially one of France’s most beautiful villages) and Tende, above 1,000m. The line reopened in December 2025 after a €74 million, 15-month closure to reinforce tunnels and stabilise landslide-prone sections, so it’s a genuinely renewed piece of infrastructure rather than an old scenic ride running on borrowed time. Main departure is 9:32am from Nice-Ville, arriving Tende around 11:32am, guide on board; full one-way fare is about €16.80 adult, €8.40 for kids 4 to 12. It runs daily June through September, weekends and public holidays the rest of the year, so check the calendar first if you’re travelling outside peak season. This is a two-hour-each-way day, not a bolt-on; hop off partway at Saorge or Sospel if the full run feels like too much train in one sitting.
Day 7: Bellet, the Vineyard Almost Nobody Visits
Here’s the fact most Nice guides skip entirely: the city has its own wine appellation, AOC Bellet, classified since 1941 and the only French AOC contained entirely within a single city’s limits, roughly 50 hectares on steep terraces above the centre, growing largely Ligurian-origin grapes (Vermentino for whites, Braquet for a notably darker, more structured rosé than typical pale Provençal versions). Château de Bellet runs public tours and tastings at 11am, 2pm, and 3:30pm most days (closed over the 12:30-2pm break and late December), roughly €20 for a tour plus tasting; Clos Saint-Vincent is a smaller, six-partner-winery alternative if you want a quieter visit. A seasonal tourist shuttle to the vineyards runs in summer (the 2026 schedule gets confirmed closer to the season, check with the Nice tourist office before relying on it), which is a genuine, welcome change from the old default advice that Bellet strictly needs a car.
If wine isn’t the draw, treat Day 7 as the flex day it’s meant to be instead: a slower repeat of whichever beach or Vieux Nice corner you liked best all week, no train ticket required. Either way, save enough of the afternoon for a last, unhurried Promenade walk before heading to the airport via Tram Line 2, with real buffer time if you’re flying out during peak summer.
Transportation
Lignes d’Azur runs Nice’s trams and buses (single ticket €1.70, day pass €7). Every coastal and inland train leg above runs on the same TER network, checkable live via SNCF Connect . A full week of this much rail use is squarely inside Pass Sud Azur Explore territory, an unlimited multi-day pass covering trains, trams, and buses across the Alpes-Maritimes and Monaco (price the 3, 7, and 14-day tiers against your actual route count at a Lignes d’Azur machine).
Tips and Essentials
- Watch bags on the trains themselves, not just crowded old-town lanes; a documented distraction scam (“that’s my reserved seat”) targets exactly this kind of route.
- Beach-club restaurants along the Promenade often skip posting a menu; confirm drink prices before ordering.
- Book the Train des Merveilles’s morning departure ahead in summer, and the Bellet tour ahead in high season too; both run limited daily slots that fill up.
Where to Stay
Vieux Nice suits Day 1 but runs small and loud after dark. Near the station shaves real time off six of your seven travel mornings, worth more than old-town charm on a week built this heavily around train departures. For the full breakdown of Nice itself, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, the Nice, France guide covers what a week of day trips leaves out.