The French Riviera: A 4-Day Itinerary from Nice to Cannes

In May 2023, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse: a press trip organized by A Tout France, where I and a small group of other travel influencers would visit the French Riviera. From the moment I got the offer, my goal was clear: to use the trip to create a series of articles for you about all the places we would visit on the Riviera, and of course a travel itinerary you can use.

Our plane landed in Nice in early July, and by evening we had already reached Cannes, where the breeze cooled the air. That’s where a journey of several days of pleasures began, through some of the most beautiful and enjoyable places on the French Riviera. This article will help you experience these places just as I experienced them, and will also give you the practical information you need to plan your upcoming trip there.

So, just before we set out to explore the French Riviera, let’s talk about what you’ll find in this article. I’ll start with an overview of the nine main destinations along the Riviera, from west to east, and then move on to practical information: how to get there, how to travel between the towns, what’s worth booking in advance, and when the best time to visit is. After that come the four days of the itinerary, day by day, based on what I actually did. Further on I’ll suggest a few ways to extend the trip if you have more than four days, a section on where to stay in each town, and at the end, answers to the questions I get asked most often about this region.

What to See on the French Riviera: The 9 Main Destinations

The French Riviera, known in French as the Côte d’Azur (the Azure Coast), is the coastline of southeastern France, stretching from Saint-Tropez in the west to Menton and the Italian border in the east. Here are the nine destinations I keep coming back to, listed geographically from west to east:

1. Saint-Tropez – The westernmost point of the Riviera. A fishing village that became a symbol of glamour in the 1960s, and to this day it keeps its old harbor and the market at Place des Lices. It’s far from the other destinations, about two hours from Nice, so it deserves a full day.
2. Grasse – The perfume capital of the world, in the hills above Cannes. Three historic perfume houses are open to visitors, along with the International Perfume Museum. A great destination for half a day, especially on a rainy day.
3. Cannes – La Croisette boulevard, the Festival Palace and the Forville market in the old town. The city where I started my itinerary. Cannes: attractions and restaurants, Walking tour of Cannes
4. Saint-Paul-de-Vence – A walled artists’ village, ten minutes from the coast and a world of its own. Chagall lived and was buried there, and the Fondation Maeght is nearby. The Riviera’s artists’ village
5. Antibes – A walled old town with the Picasso Museum in the Château Grimaldi, next to Cap d’Antibes with the most beautiful coastal path in the area. The complete guide to Antibes, Walking route in Antibes and Cap d’Antibes
6. Nice – The unofficial capital of the Riviera and the main gateway for most travelers. The Promenade des Anglais, the old town and the lookout from Castle Hill. The complete guide to Nice, Restaurants in Nice
7. Èze – A village perched on a cliff, about 430 meters above the sea, on the road from Nice to Monaco. The exotic garden at the summit offers one of the Riviera’s most famous views.
8. Monaco – An independent principality within the Riviera, the second smallest country in the world. Monte Carlo and its casino, the Prince’s Palace and the Formula 1 street circuit. A quarter hour by train from Nice.
9. Menton – The easternmost destination, right on the Italian border with an entirely Italian feel. France’s lemon town, with the Lemon Festival in February and subtropical gardens.

Practical Information for a French Riviera Itinerary

How to Get to the French Riviera

Your gateway is Nice Côte d’Azur Airport (Aéroport Nice Côte d’Azur), which sits right on the coastline at the western edge of the city. From there, tram line 2 takes you to central Nice, and the main train station, Nice-Ville, is a short walk away. I wrote in detail about direct flights, terminals and ways to get out of the airport in my article on flights to Nice and the airport.

If you’re planning to start in Cannes the way I did, it’s worth knowing that Cannes sits west of the airport, so the drive from the airport to Cannes is shorter than the drive to old Nice. Which brings me to a tip I’m glad I discovered: it’s better to start the route at the western end and work your way east, not the other way around.

Train, Bus or Rental Car Between Nice and Cannes

Four of the five stops on this route sit on the same train line, the Marseille-Ventimiglia line, served by frequent TER trains run by Région Sud throughout the day. The sequence runs Cannes, Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Nice, and the ride between any two stops takes just a few minutes. Trains run through these stations from 5 a.m. until 1 a.m., so even a late dinner in another town isn’t a problem. It’s easy to book tickets in advance through Omio, which brings all the train operators together on one screen and saves you the hassle of dealing with the French website.

The only destination on the route without a train station is Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and that’s exactly where a rental car makes a difference. By public transportation, you get there in two steps: a train to the Cagnes-sur-Mer station, then bus line 655 on the ZOU! network, which leaves from the square by the train station and runs to Vence through Saint-Paul. The service runs during the day, and the updated schedule is published on the village’s tourism office website. If you’d rather book a seat in advance on the on-demand lines, you can call ZOU!’s customer service at 04 13 94 30 50, which answers daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

I did the whole route by car myself, and that’s what I would recommend if you have two days or more. The Riviera runs along coastal roads that hug the sea, as well as the A8 toll highway that runs parallel further inland, so when you have a car you get to choose each morning between the scenery and speed. For details on rental counters at the airport, what to check before you take the keys, and parking in the area, I wrote more in my article on renting a car in Nice.

Tickets and Attractions Worth Booking in Advance

The Riviera is busy in summer, and the places where the line really gets annoying are the boat trip to the Lérins Islands from Cannes, the Picasso Museum in Antibes in the early afternoon, and the guided tours of the old town of Nice. These are worth locking in before your trip. Here’s what I booked, or would book again:

When to Come to the French Riviera, and How Much Time to Plan

Four days is the minimum that lets you see the four main destinations without rushing, and five or six days let you add Èze, Monaco and Grasse without changing hotels. I was there in early July, and that’s the season when the Riviera is at its absolute peak in every sense: the sea is at a pleasant temperature, the villages stay open until evening, and the tourists are out in full force too. If you want the same light without the same crowds, the best months are May, June, September and October.

There are two traps in the calendar worth knowing about. The first: the Cannes Film Festival takes place in May, and during its two weeks, Cannes becomes expensive and so crowded that a relaxed visit becomes impossible. The second: the local town museums are closed on Mondays, and the Chagall Museum in Nice is closed on Tuesdays. Monday is therefore the best day to dedicate to the markets, the promenades and the walking route on Cap d’Antibes.

Day 1 on the French Riviera: From Nice to Cannes

My first day was a landing day, so I didn’t try to cram museums into it. We landed in Nice, drove west to Cannes, and all that was left of the day was the afternoon and evening. That turned out to be a good opening, because Cannes looks better in low light.

The first stop was La Croisette, the coastal boulevard that stretches about two kilometers along Cannes Bay. On the sea side are the private beaches of the big hotels, and on the other side are the brand boutiques and hotels that look like 19th-century wedding cakes. At the eastern end is the Port Canto garden, and at the western end you reach the Festival Palace.

The Festival Palace and Convention Center (Palais des Festivals et des Congrès) is the first surprise, and not a good one. The building itself is modern and heavy, and most visitors come for one thing: the steps where the red carpet is laid out every May. Even without the carpet, you’ll find a line of people taking photos there, along with the handprints of film stars set into the pavement of the boulevard around it. You can read the story of the festival, which was founded for entirely political reasons rather than artistic ones, in my article on the history of Cannes.

From the Palace we climbed up to Le Suquet, the hill where the original Cannes was built before tourism arrived. The streets there are narrow and steep, the houses are painted in ochre and pink, and at the top of the hill stands the 16th-century Notre-Dame d’Espérance church, next to a medieval watchtower. The view from there over the bay and the islands is the real reason to make the climb, especially in the quarter hour before sunset.

For dinner, I’d recommend staying in Le Suquet or the streets below it, rather than on La Croisette itself. I listed the restaurants I loved in Cannes, including Le Relais des Semailles and Aux Bons Enfants, in my guide Cannes: attractions, restaurants and hotels, and the detailed walking route through the city in my article on what to do in Cannes.

Day 2 on the French Riviera: Cannes in the morning, Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the afternoon

The second day is the one that justifies the whole itinerary. In the morning we wrapped up Cannes, and in the afternoon we drove 35 minutes inland to a fortified village on a hilltop that feels like another world entirely.

Morning in Cannes: Marché Forville and Rue d’Antibes

The Marché Forville is where Cannes stops putting on a show. It’s a covered market, a short walk from the harbor, and it runs every morning except Monday, when it turns into a flea market. What I found there was the Provençal side of the region, not the glitzy one: vegetable stalls, goat cheeses, olives in every shade, and fish caught that same morning. I buy bread, cheese and fruit at markets like this and eat them in the evening at the hotel instead of a third restaurant meal.

From the market you can cut over to Rue d’Antibes, the city’s main shopping street, which runs parallel to the Croisette two blocks inland and offers the same brands at more human prices. By the way, it was in this area that Napoleon stopped on the night of March 1, 1815, on his way from Elba to Grenoble, and this is the starting point of the Route Napoléon. Erez Levanon wrote about the full route in his article on the Route Napoléon.

If you have an extra half day in Cannes, spend it on the Îles de Lérins. Ferries leave from the harbor, the crossing to Île Sainte-Marguerite takes about a quarter of an hour, and the island has a pine forest, coves for swimming, and Fort Royal, where the prisoner known as the Man in the Iron Mask was held in the 17th century. On the second island, Saint-Honorat, a Cistercian monastery is still active, and the monks there make wine.

Afternoon in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Saint-Paul-de-Vence is a fortified village on a hillside, a short drive from the coast, and its walls were built on the orders of Francis I (r. 1515-1547) to defend the border with the Principality of Savoy. In practice, the village is known today for what happened there in the 20th century: painters who lived there, galleries that took over an entire street, and a small cemetery where Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is buried.

The village itself is small, and you can walk from one end to the other in ten minutes. Things I wouldn’t skip there:

• Rue Grande: the main street, running from the north gate to the south gate, lined with galleries and workshops.
• Place de la Grande Fontaine: a pear-shaped fountain from the 19th century with a vaulted laundry basin beside it. The most photographed square in the village.
• The collegiate church: built from the 14th century onward, and its treasury holds a small 13th-century statue of the Virgin Mary.
• The cemetery: outside the walls at the southern end, home to Chagall’s remarkably simple grave.
• The pétanque square: right past the main gate, where a group of locals plays pétanque every afternoon.
• Le Bastion du Dauphin: the southern corner of the wall, with a view over the Var valley and the sea.

The real reason to come up here, in my opinion, is actually outside the walls. The Fondation Maeght was built in 1964 by the art dealer Aimé Maeght (1906-1981) and his wife Marguerite, after their youngest son died of illness, and they decided to create an institution for modern art in the place where the boy used to play. The Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert (1902-1983) designed the building, and in the gardens around it, works created on site and for the site stand by Joan Miró (1893-1983), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Marc Chagall, and Georges Braque (1882-1963). Miró’s Labyrinth is a sculpture garden you can actually walk into, not just look at.

Practical information for the Fondation Maeght, as it appears on the official website as of August 2026: open every day of the year from 10:00 to 18:00, and until 19:00 in July and August. Adult ticket 18 euros, reduced ticket 14 euros for students and pupils aged 16 to 18, and free admission for children up to 16. No advance booking is required. Backpacks aren’t allowed in the exhibition halls, there’s a cloakroom at the entrance, and dogs aren’t permitted. Parking is free. Inside the grounds, the restaurant Sous les Pins is run by the chefs of Les Agitateurs from Nice, and its furniture was designed by Diego Giacometti (1902-1985).

Before you leave, it’s worth peeking inside La Colombe d’Or, the inn where painters stayed in the 1920s and 1930s and paid for their meals with paintings. The collection that resulted now hangs on the walls of the dining room, and you can only see it if you’re eating or staying there. I wrote all the details about the village, its churches and its restaurants in a separate article on Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the artists’ village of the Riviera.

Day 3 on the French Riviera: Antibes and Cap d’Antibes

Antibes was the destination that surprised me the most on this trip, because I didn’t expect anything from it. In practice, it’s the only one of the four destinations in the itinerary that is at once a walled old town, a huge marina, a Picasso museum, and a cliffside walking path above the sea. All of it in a town you can cross on foot.

I started at Port Vauban, the largest marina in the region, and on Boulevard d’Aiguillon, which leads from it into the town. At the end of the harbor is the dock that locals call the billionaires’ quay, where the really big yachts anchor. From the harbor you enter the old town through the walls, and that’s where the good part begins.

The Marché provençal is the heart of old Antibes. It sits under an iron roof on Boulevard Masséna, runs in the mornings, and the products there are genuinely local: zucchini flowers, socca, panisse, local olives and lavender. One moment I remember from there is a fish stall arranged like a jewelry store window, next to a restaurant that served from a whole cellar of absinthe with dozens of bottles. Antibes takes its food seriously in a way I didn’t find in Cannes.

Things I wouldn’t skip in Antibes:

• Place Nationale: a square surrounded by plane trees and cafés, with a stone column at its center. The spot for a coffee break in the old town.
• Quartier du Safranier: a tiny neighborhood that declared itself a “free commune” in the 1960s, with private courtyards full of greenery and streets with no cars.
• Musée Picasso: housed in the Château Grimaldi, holding the works Picasso left behind in the town.
• The Cathedral of Antibes: next to the museum, with a baroque facade and a church structure resting on Roman foundations.
• The ramparts facing the sea: walking along the top of the wall above the sea is the part I’d go back for, and it’s free.
• Cap d’Antibes: the southern peninsula, home to the sentier de Tire-poil, a trail running along the cliffs, and the plateau de la Garoupe with its lighthouse and viewpoint.

The Musée Picasso in Antibes: what to know before you visit

The museum sits in the Château Grimaldi, a building constructed on what was once the acropolis of Greek Antipolis, then a fortified Roman camp, and later a bishop’s residence. The Grimaldi family held it until 1608, and the town of Antibes bought it in 1925. In 1946, the curator Romuald Dor de la Souchère offered Picasso a studio there, and Picasso, who was living at the time in Golfe-Juan with Françoise Gilot (1921-2023), worked there from mid-September to mid-November of that year. When he returned to Paris, he left 23 paintings and 44 drawings on deposit at the château, including the work “Les Clés d’Antibes” (The Keys of Antibes), which covers an entire wall. On December 27, 1966, the château officially became the Musée Picasso.

What came afterward expanded the collection well beyond that original deposit: 78 ceramic pieces made between 1947 and 1948 at the Madoura workshop in Vallauris, purchases and donations from 1952 to the present, and the deposit granted by Jacqueline Picasso in 1991. Another wing displays works by Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955), who stayed in Antibes from September 1954 to March 1955, and since 2001 the museum has also had two galleries devoted to Hans Hartung (1904-1989) and Anna-Eva Bergman (1909-1987). On the museum’s terrace, above the sea, stand sculptures by Germaine Richier (1902-1959) and Joan Miró (1893-1983).

Practical information, according to the Antibes Juan-les-Pins tourist office as of August 2026: between June 15 and September 15, the museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 without a break. The rest of the year it’s open the same days from 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 18:00, meaning with a one-hour lunch closure. The museum is closed on Mondays, as well as on January 1, May 1, November 1 and December 25. Adult ticket 12 euros, reduced ticket 8 euros, and free admission up to age 18. A combined ticket covering all of Antibes’s municipal museums costs 15 euros and is valid for seven consecutive days. The address is Place Mariejol, and tickets can be booked through the city’s official ticketing site.

If you have another half day, continue south to Cap d’Antibes and to Juan-les-Pins, the seaside town where the Riviera’s summer season was born in the 1920s. You can read the full history of the town, from the Greeks to Picasso, in the article on the history of Antibes, and the detailed walking route in the article on a walking tour of Antibes and Cap d’Antibes. Practical information on the weather, how to get there, and restaurants is gathered in the complete guide to Antibes.

Day 4 in the French Riviera: Nice and the old town

I saved Nice for last, and that was the right call. After three days of small towns, Nice feels like a capital: it’s big, lively, it has an opera house and museums and a long shopping street, and it has an old town that looks and smells completely Italian. The reason is historical and simple. Until 1860, Nice wasn’t French at all but belonged to the House of Savoy, and it only joined France after the Treaty of Turin and a local vote. I wrote about that story, including the doubts over how fair that vote really was, in the article on the history of Nice.

The route I took starts at Place Masséna, the red square with the checkered pavement and the statues on poles, and continues east into Vieux Nice. Here are the stops I recommend:

• The Opéra de Nice: rebuilt in 1885 after the theater that preceded it burned down, and its facade looks like a small-scale version of the Paris Opera.
• Cours Saleya: the market street of Nice. In the mornings it’s a flower market and a food market, and on Mondays it becomes an antiques market. In the afternoon it turns into a street of restaurants.
• Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate: a 17th-century baroque cathedral with a dome tiled in colorful ceramic.
• Église Sainte-Rita: small from the outside and decorated from floor to ceiling inside. One of the biggest surprises in the old town.
• Palais Lascaris: a 17th-century aristocratic mansion turned museum, with a collection of antique musical instruments.
• Colline du Château: there hasn’t been a castle up there since 1706, when Louis XIV destroyed the fortress, but there’s an artificial waterfall and a lookout over the whole bay. You can take an elevator from the end of Quai des États-Unis.

Beyond the old town lies the Promenade des Anglais, named for the British winter community in Nice that financed its construction in the 1820s. It’s wide, long, and furnished with the famous blue chairs, and the right time to walk it is between 7:00 p.m. and sunset. I wrote the full walking route through the old town, street by street, in the article on a walking route through the old town of Nice.

Two museums in Nice are worth an extra half day, and both sit outside the center: the Musée Marc Chagall, which holds the “Biblical Message” cycle the painter himself dedicated to it, and the Musée Matisse on the Cimiez hill, which sits in a 17th-century Italian villa inside an olive grove. Keep in mind that the Chagall museum is a national museum and is therefore not included in the city museum pass of Nice, which covers Matisse and the rest of the city’s museums.

If you want another angle on the city, Ya’ara Gadron Margaliot wrote on the site about Nice and the ultimate vacation, with a focus on beaches and family activities. I gathered the restaurants I loved in the city in the article on recommended restaurants in Nice, and the full picture of the city in the guide Nice travel guide.

How to extend the French Riviera itinerary

The four days I described cover the core, but the Riviera continues another 30 kilometers east to the Italian border, and climbs inland to villages that look over the sea from hundreds of meters up. If you have an extra day or two, here’s what I’d add:

• Èze and Monaco: Èze is an eagle’s-nest village on a cliff above the sea, about 20 minutes from Nice, and Monaco is right after it. Both destinations in one day is a common combination, and there are bus lines and guided tours that do exactly that.
• Grasse: the perfume capital of France, about 40 minutes from Cannes, with historic perfume houses that offer perfume-making workshops.
• Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat: a peninsula of villas, home to Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and its nine gardens.
• The Route Napoléon: if you’re finishing the Riviera and want to head up into the Alps, this is the way. It starts in Cannes and climbs all the way to Grenoble.
• The Verdon Gorge: about two and a half hours inland, with a canyon hundreds of meters deep and water in a color that’s hard to believe.

All of these fall within Provence in the broad sense, and I gathered the bigger picture of the region, including itineraries that start in Avignon and Marseille, in the page Provence travel guide.

Where to stay on the French Riviera itinerary

The first decision you need to make is whether to sleep in one city or move around. I moved around, and in hindsight I’d cut it down: two home bases are plenty for four days, one in Cannes or Antibes and one in Nice. That decision saves you two rounds of packing, and it also saves money, since in Cannes and Nice midweek prices run considerably lower than weekend prices.

Where to stay in Cannes

In Cannes, the difference between the first street from the beach and the third street can mean a price difference of tens of percent, for less than five minutes of extra walking. If you want the classic beachfront, the three names that keep coming up are Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel, Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes, and Five Seas Hotel Cannes. A tier down, Hôtel Belle Plage sits near La Croisette and across from the sea, and Hotel Molière and Hôtel de Provence are the sensible choice for anyone who wants a central location without a beachfront hotel bill. I gathered the full list, with descriptions and prices, in the article on recommended hotels in Cannes.

Where to stay in Antibes

In my view, Antibes is the smartest choice on this itinerary, because it sits right in the middle between Cannes and Nice, and its lodging prices are lower than both. La Place Boutique Hotel and Hôtel La Villa Port d’Antibes & Spa are within walking distance of the old town and the harbor, Mas Djoliba is a manor house in a garden within walking distance of the beach, and anyone looking for the luxury end will find it at Cap d’Antibes Beach Hotel and at Le 1932 Hotel & Spa Cap d’Antibes. The full breakdown is in the article on recommended hotels in Antibes.

Where to stay in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

There are very few rooms in the village itself, and most lodging is found in the vineyards and manor houses around it. Domaine du Mas de Pierre is the luxury address of the area, Hôtel La Grande Bastide is a small manor house with a pool and a view over the village, and Les Messugues sits near the Fondation Maeght. I covered all three, as well as the restaurants in the village, in the article on Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Where to stay in Nice

In Nice, I recommend choosing based on what you want to do in the morning. Anyone who wants to wake up to the promenade should pick Hotel Le Negresco, Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel, or Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée. Anyone who wants to wake up to the old town should pick Palais Saleya Boutique hôtel, which sits steps from Cours Saleya. In the more sensible categories, Hotel Le Grimaldi and Hotel Suisse are in central locations, and Nice Garden Hotel is a small hotel with an inner garden within walking distance of Place Masséna. The full list, by star rating and by budget, is in the article on hotels in Nice for every budget.

FAQ about the French Riviera itinerary

Answers to questions I’ve received from travelers planning a trip to the French Riviera.

I think of the French Riviera as a sequence of rooms in the same house: Cannes is the grand living room meant for guests, Antibes is the kitchen where the real cooking happens, Saint-Paul-de-Vence is the room where the paintings hang, and Nice is the entrance everyone passes through. Four days is exactly the time it takes to understand that, and to start missing it.