The Promenade des Anglais
Five kilometres of palm-lined seafront — scooters, swimming and the best sunset walk on the Riviera.
Nice & the Côte d’Azur
Promenades and the blue Mediterranean
Best time
May – June & September
Gentle pace
4–6 slow days
Ideal for
Beach-loving families · Couples · First-time France
Nice is the warm, elegant capital of the Riviera — a city of pastel facades and a palm-lined promenade curving around a bay of impossible blue. Behind the pebble beaches lies an old town of narrow lanes and markets; above it, a hilltop park with the finest view on the coast. It is the easiest base on the Côte d’Azur, with trains and boats to every seaside village.
With children, swim from the sheltered bays, take a boat to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, ride the little train up to the castle hill, and spend evenings on the promenade with an ice cream as the Mediterranean turns to glass.
Worth lingering over
Castle Hill park
A short climb (or lift) to a shaded park, waterfall and the panoramic view over the red rooftops and the bay.
A day trip to Èze & Cap Ferrat
A medieval hill village and a peninsula of hidden coves, both an easy bus or boat from Nice.
Hidden gem
Villefranche-sur-Mer and the Citadelle
Ten minutes by train from Nice, Villefranche is a deep, calm bay the colour of a gemstone, ringed by a line of ochre houses right at the water’s edge. Most Riviera day-trippers push on to Monaco or Cannes; those who stop here swim off the sandy shallows, wander the dark old lanes, and find the 16th-century citadel above the port — now a quiet garden of cactus and olive, with a chapel painted by Jean Cocteau and almost no one in it.