Nice is where you sleep. The whole Riviera is the day out.
Which corniche tour actually stops at Èze. What the ferry over to Sainte-Marguerite costs. Whether Monaco is a half day or a full one. Reviews of every tour you can book in Nice and along the Côte d’Azur.
Four bookings a first week in Nice hangs off.
What each one costs, how long it runs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The half dayEze, Monaco, & Monte-Carlo Half-Day TripÈze, Monaco and Monte-Carlo before lunch. The first thing most people book here, and it holds up.
02The whole coastFrench Riviera in One DayCannes, Antibes, Saint-Paul de Vence and Monaco in one long day. Worth the seat time.
03The hour on the water1-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche BayOut past the port and round into Villefranche bay. The cheapest way to see Nice properly.
04The bench in GrassePerfume Making Class and Fragonard Factory TourBlend and bottle a scent of your own in the perfume town up behind the coast.
Nice, Villefranche, Èze, Monaco, Menton: the coast road east, stop by stop.
Three roads climb out of Nice towards the Italian border, and everything worth stopping for sits on one of them. Six stops and the best day out at each.
Villefranche-sur-Mer
Èze
Monaco
Menton
Cap FerratNice first, then whichever stretch of the Côte d’Azur you keep looking at.
A pebble bay under a castle hill, a film town with a boat to two islands, a principality on a rock, ramparts with a Picasso behind them, the deepest harbour on the coast and a hill town that smells of jasmine. Six bases, and the best day out in each.
The Côte d’Azur reads better from the water than from the coast road.
The corniche gives you the view; a hull gives you the coves under it. Three kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each, and which port it sails from.
The days out more people take than anything else on this coast.
Every Riviera tour →Èze, Monaco and Monte-Carlo in half a day. The whole coast in one. An hour afloat to Villefranche. What earns each of them the slot.
1
Eze, Monaco, & Monte-Carlo Half-Day Trip
Explore Eze, Monaco, and Monte Carlo from Nice in five hours, with coastal views, Fragonard perfume, palace sights, and a drive on the F1 circuit.
From · $42
Read our review →
2
French Riviera in One Day
from $85
3
1-Hour Sightseeing Cruise to Villefranche Bay
from $33
4
1 or 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $28
5
Monte Carlo Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $29
6
Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender Tour
from $125
7
Round-Trip Ferry to Ste. Marguerite Island
from $24
8
★ Walking Tour of Old Nice and Castle Hill
from $39
Monaco is twenty minutes from Nice and a different country.
The Rock first: the palace guard changes at eleven, the Oceanographic Museum hangs off the cliff behind it, and the old streets are quiet by four. Then down to the casino square and the circuit that runs through it. Most people give it a half day and wish they had booked the full one.
- 1Monte Carlo Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tourfrom $29
- 2Monaco Formula 1 Walking Tour – The Inside Track Monaco F1from $60
- 3Formula One Circuit Guided Walking Tourfrom $64
Socca off a hot plate on the Cours Saleya, then a cellar in the hills behind Nice.
Niçoise food is street food with a Ligurian accent: chickpea pancake, stuffed vegetables, pissaladière by the slice. Book the market walk before the heat, the tasting after it.
What a day on the Côte d’Azur actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best days here cost less than lunch on the Croisette.
Old-town walks, market mornings, the little train and the ferry across to Sainte-Marguerite.
The full days out: Monaco and Èze by minibus, the Verdon and the lavender, a catamaran off Cannes.
Private drivers, chartered decks and the narrow-gauge train up into the Alps.
Three things that happen on the Côte d’Azur and nowhere else.
Sun and a blue bay are everywhere in the Mediterranean. A town that has made scent for four hundred years, a Grand Prix circuit you can walk on a Tuesday, and lavender that only flowers for five weeks are not.
The perfume houses
Grasse sits twenty minutes up into the hills and has been distilling since the sixteenth century, when the local tanners started scenting gloves. Fragonard, Molinard and Galimard all still run their old works and all three put visitors on a bench with a set of raw materials and a scale. You leave with a bottle and your formula on file, so the town can post you a refill years later.
- 1Fragonard Eze: Perfume Making Class and Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 743 reviews
- 2Perfume Making Class and Fragonard Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 684 reviews
- 3Discovery Perfume Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 637 reviews
The Grand Prix circuit
For fifty weeks of the year the circuit is simply Monaco’s road network, which means you can walk it: down from the casino, through the tunnel under the Fairmont hairpin, out along the harbour past Rascasse. The barriers and grandstands go up through April and come down in June, and in that fortnight the walking tours stop and the town belongs to the race.
- 1Monte Carlo Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,447 reviews
- 2Monaco Formula 1 Walking Tour – The Inside Track Monaco F1★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,017 reviews
- 3Formula One Circuit Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 451 reviews
Verdon and the lavender
Three hours inland the Verdon river has cut a limestone canyon seven hundred metres deep, and the water at the bottom runs an unlikely turquoise off the rock flour it carries. The lavender on the Valensole plateau on the way there flowers from the last week of June and is cut by the end of July; either side of that window the fields are green stubble.
- 1Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,975 reviews
- 2Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 342 reviews
- 3Gorges du Verdon Shared Tour from Nice★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 273 reviews
Four Riviera bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this coast can be sorted over breakfast the day before. These four run on flowering seasons, ferry timetables, race barriers and a bench with a fixed number of seats.
- 01Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender TourThe lavender on the Valensole plateau flowers from late June and is cut by the end of July. Outside that window you are looking at green rows.
- 02Monaco Formula 1 Walking Tour – The Inside Track Monaco F1The circuit is a working road. Through the build-up to the Grand Prix the barriers go up and the walking tours stop.
- 03Monaco & Eze Small-Group Day Trip with Perfumery Visit from NiceWorkshops run in small groups around a limited bench of raw materials, so weekend slots go weeks ahead.
- 04Round-Trip Ferry to Ste. Marguerite IslandThe Lérins ferry runs to a printed timetable, and the last boat back is earlier than you expect in spring and autumn.
The days Nice keeps its boats in harbour, go up the hill instead.
Rain is rare here and swell is not. When the wind comes round, the coastal cruises and the Lérins crossing are cancelled at a few hours’ notice, and the whole seafront plan goes with them. The answer is inland and indoors: a perfume bench in Grasse, a cellar in the Bellet hills, the covered stalls on the Cours Saleya.
By place — Nice, and the coast either side of it
By kind of day — a deck, a bench, a vineyard or a corniche
The newest Riviera tour reviews.
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Cannes Large Group Shore Excursion with a Minibus 15 seater
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Private excursion from Villefranche in Citroën Méhari to Eze and Monaco
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Horse riding in the vineyards of Grimaud + wine tasting
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Private Tour from Saint-Tropez to the flowers city
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1/2 day, private wine tour, van from Saint Tropez
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Private Professional Vacation Photoshoot in Nice
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Antibes, Cannes, Eze village, Perfume Fragonard, Monte Carlo-Monaco
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Private Full Day Tour : Eze, Monaco, Monte-Carlo
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3-Course Organic Dinner in Garden with Views of French Riviera
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Full-Day Private Tour to St-Tropez and Port Grimaud from Nice
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Cannes Shore Excursion: Grasse, Gourdon & St Paul de Vence
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