The Cote d’Azur is called one of the most expensive resorts in the world. But if you plan your trip properly, you can save money on many things.
In 2019, I spent two weeks on the Côte d’Azur. During this time, I traveled to Nice, Cannes, Saint-Tropez and Toulon, as well as small cute towns on the coast, such as Antibes. They were just gaining popularity among tourists, so the prices there were moderate. An apartment cost 45 € per day, and food cost 13 € per day.
Traveling between cities was quick and inexpensive too. In 2023, some prices have increased, but many sights can still be seen for free or for a small fee.
Introductory data
Where is it located: south of France, Provence.
Sea: Mediterranean.
Average temperature: +30 °C in summer, +18 °C in spring and fall.
Currency: euro, 1 €.
Language: French, English is spoken in tourist areas.
Weather
The season starts in May, but the water only warms up to +21 °C by mid-June. In summer, the coast is hot: even in the shade, temperatures can reach +30 °C. It is better to walk around the towns in the morning or evening, when the sun hides behind the houses close to each other.
September is the velvet season: there are fewer tourists and the weather allows you to swim and sunbathe. The average daytime air temperature is +24 °C and water temperature is +20 °C. The season ends in October.
The coast averages +14 °C in winter and +18 °C in spring.
️How to get there
From the airport to the center of Nice you can walk an hour along the Promenade des Anglais or take bus number 60 or streetcar L2 or L3. In 2023 the fare is 1,5 € . A map and the location of the stops is available on the official airport website.
From Paris to Nice is six hours by train, a ticket in 2023 costs 50-150 € depending on the departure point and the date of ticket purchase. Traveling by Flixbus will cost at least 40 € and will take 13-16 hours.
Côte d’Azur resorts
You can travel along the coast for months on end. I will tell you about a few cities that I remember most of all.
Nice is impossible to see in one day. You want to stay in the city for a week, even if you have no clear plans: just walk along the streets, the Promenade des Anglais and admire the sea.
Nice’s old town is like Italy with its yellow walls and orange roofs. It’s crowded and atmospheric: if you remove all the trendy cafes, the neighborhood looks like a medieval one.
The observatory is located 8 kilometers from the center of Nice at an altitude of 370 meters. It can only be visited as part of a guided tour in English. The guides talk enthusiastically about the stars, the sky and their own research. I’m not into astronomy, but even I was interested.
If you don’t speak English or French, I still recommend a trip to the observatory. The observation deck overlooks the famous curved coastline of Nice, which resembles a sickle.
A ticket to the observatory costs 12 €, they are sold on the spot. There is a bus from the city center to the observatory, bus no. 84, which costs 1.5 €.
Another observation deck of Nice is located on the Castle Hill. From there you can see the seafront and the city as a whole. To get to the observation deck, you have to walk along the Promenade des Anglais towards the harbor. On a hot day, the climb may seem endless, so it is better to use the free elevator.
Cannes. In the daytime, it is an ordinary tourist town where tourists in shorts or swimsuits lazily stroll around. But in the evening, the city changes. On the Boulevard Croisette you can catch the scent of expensive selective perfumes, and on the seafront there are parties on yachts.
There are few sights in Cannes: a lookout point, a castle and a port with yachts, which everyone enters as a museum. Another famous place in the city is the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, where the Cannes Film Festival is held every year. If there is no event planned in the near future, the building looks ordinary. You can visit it on event days, tickets are sold on the palace’s website.
You can look down on the city from the observation deck next to the 17th-century Church of Our Lady of Good Hope. I went up on foot and didn’t regret it: I saw deserted streets and atmospheric alleyways.
Overall, I felt that a day was enough for Cannes. Then it’s better to find a hotel in a more accessible and less noisy city.
If I wasn’t specifically looking for the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, I would have walked past this building without even noticing it
Antibes is a cozy little town between Nice and Cannes. If you walk around the old center in the evening, it may seem that there are no people in the city. But in fact everyone, from young people to companies of stylish grandparents, sit in bars and restaurants.
Antibes has preserved the ancient Fort Carré, where Napoleon was imprisoned in his younger years. The fort is built in the shape of a four-pointed star and is located in a park area. From the top there is a view of the city and the sea. You can only go inside as part of a guided tour, the ticket costs 3 € and is sold on the spot. Even if you don’t want to go inside the fort, I advise you to wander around its mighty walls: the Carré looks impressive.
Another popular attraction in Antibes is the Pablo Picasso Museum. It is located in the building where the artist lived and painted for several months. That period of creativity was short, but fruitful for Picasso. The artist donated many of his works to the city, and they were the beginning of the museum. Entrance in 2023 costs 8 €, tickets are sold on site.
St. Tropez has pine trees, different beaches, and a promenade with yellow buildings. Looking at the photos, I feel like I’ve been to at least three different places.
St. Tropez is mostly visited for its late bedtimes and late waking hours. It is a city of fun, parties and noisy bars, which became popular after the release of the movie “And God Created Woman” with Brigitte Bardot.
In Saint-Tropez, you can see and photograph the 18th-century Eglise Notre-Dame de l’Asomption church. Its yellow and pink bell tower is featured on most postcards in Saint-Tropez souvenir shops. The church stands out for its size against a backdrop of small and low houses, but I thought it looked better in photos than in reality.
In October, the Porsche Car Parade, famous throughout Europe, takes place in the city. It features rare car models driven by stylish European grandparents. The dates of the festival can be found on the official website.
Port Grimaud was built in the sixties of the last century. The land on the marshes was not of interest to developers, but one ambitious French architect found a way out and designed a city on the water. Twenty small islands, fourteen bridges and private boats near each house – this is the whole of Grimaud. You can move here only on foot or by boat along the canals, which is why the city is called the Venice of France.
Toulon is 150 kilometers from Nice, practically at the very end of the western part of the Côte d’Azur. The navy is based there, so sometimes you can see not only yachts, but also rugged warships. It is a large city by French standards.
Toulon seemed unpredictable to me. The old center is full of small streets and alleys, and every time I didn’t know what would be around the corner. Sometimes a small and unremarkable street would lead to a beautiful square with a fountain and restaurants.
Toulon is nestled between the forest and the azure sea. You can view the city from above from Mount Faron, which is 584 meters high. The site can be reached from the center by bus number 40 or the funicular, which is located one and a half kilometers from the railway station. A round-trip ticket for the funicular will cost 17 € in 2023.
In the city center, the beaches are small and crowded. For sea and sand, go to Murion, a neighborhood in the east of the city. There are beautiful beaches and many fish restaurants.
Also in Toulon, I was impressed by the Royal Tower, a round fort built in the 16th century. When you go up there, you feel like you are in a game of “Fort Boyarde” and Passepartout is walking somewhere nearby. From the walls of the tower you have a view of the sea and the bay.
Entrance to the tower in 2023 costs 2 €. Sometimes parties and concerts are held there. You can find the schedule on the city’s website (you need a VPN to open the link).
Beaches
In every town and village there are many different beaches: rocky, pebble, sandy, paid and free. Everywhere there is clear, azure water and an incredible view of the Mediterranean Sea.
To spend a day on a private beach in the center of Nice costs about 20 €. In tourist towns you can rent a sun lounger for 6 €. The distance between them is 20 centimeters and there are hundreds of people on the beach. It’s hard for me to imagine having a good rest in such an environment, so I always went only to free beaches. They almost always have showers and changing booths.
Carras beach is 5 kilometers long and is located near the center of Nice. In the free part of the beach you can sunbathe on your own towel. There is also a volleyball field there. There are a lot of people, but I still felt comfortable there.
The whole shore is pebbly – it is better to swim in special swimming slippers. The sea is deep at once, the water is clean and refreshing.
The beach along the Croisette Boulevard in Cannes is almost all paid. But at the beginning and end of the promenade there are places for those who just want to lie on their towel.
The shore is sandy and the water is cool. I liked this beach better in the evening at sunset, when the sun falls below the horizon and illuminates the coast with orange light.
The beach of Joan-les-Pins is cozy and quiet, although it is a 20-minute drive from Cannes. The only reminders of the proximity of one of the most expensive cities in the world are the yachts visible on the horizon.
The town is small, and there is nothing special about it, except for the sandy and clean beach. On weekdays it is comfortable and not crowded, but in the evening the beach is noisy: young people organize parties on the coast.
Pampelonne Beach, south of Saint-Tropez, has soft fine sand and a warm, clear sea. But there is no privacy there: people go to Pampelonne for parties and meetings. Some places are favored by nudists, and cafes and restaurants there are expensive. I don’t like bars and noisy places, so I was only interested in the beach during the day.
Billionaire’s Bay beach is small and picturesque, surrounded by rocks and trees. The water is clear and refreshing, while the shore and bottom are rocky. It is better to come to the beach in the morning to have time to enjoy the tranquility.
The island of St. Margherit held a man in an iron mask. You can go to the local beaches for the day: walk along the cedar alleys and visit beaches in different parts of the island. The coastline is rocky, and in some places the water has washed out beautiful caves in the rocks. You can also look at yachts from the island: there are more yachts in the sea than seagulls in the sky.
There is a ferry from Cannes to the island, the trip takes 15-20 minutes. A ticket costs 16.5 € round trip. It can be bought in advance on the carrier’s website. From Nice you will have to sail about an hour, a round-trip ticket in 2023 costs 45 €.
Money
The currency of France is the euro. You can pay by card in restaurants and stores. If you want to leave a tip, tell the waiter the amount and he will put it on the bill. To buy a coffee in a beach cafe or a souvenir, it is better to have cash with you.
Transportation
Trains. There are trains and electric trains along the Côte d’Azur. There are stations in Nice, Cannes, Toulon and Antibes. The most favorable prices are on the regional train TER. On it from Nice to Toulon – an hour and a half on the way, a ticket in 2023 costs from 10 €. From Nice to Menton, a city on the border with Italy, – only 40 minutes. The fare costs an average of €5.9.
Tickets are sold at station ticket offices, vending machines or on the official website of the French railroads.
Bus. Small distances between cities are best traveled by bus. For example, from Nice to Cannes in 2023 you can take bus number 200 for 1.5 €. It stops in different cities, including Joan-les-Pins and Antibes. Tickets are sold by the driver. Travel time is an hour and a half if there are no traffic jams.
In the cities I always walk, but you can also get around on the city bus. A ticket usually costs 1.5-2 €.
Car Rental. On the Côte d’Azur, there are the standard renters like Hertz and Badgett. I usually check cars on Kayak or Rentalkars websites.
It is expensive to book a car in summer: an economy car will cost 90-100 € per day. If you book in advance, you can find a car for 30 € in 2023. It is usually 20-30% cheaper to pick up a car at the city offices than at the airport. You can usually pay in cash at the office. The services themselves may also ask for a card to guarantee it. As a rule, you need a credit card, but some accept debit cards as well. For example, Hertz has such an option.
Housing
I used to look for hotels or apartments on Booking or Airbnb.
The cost of apartments and hotels in Nice, Cannes and Saint-Tropez is more expensive than in less popular cities. For example, in Nice a small room in a hotel not on the coastline in 2023 costs a minimum of 80 € per day, in Saint-Tropez – 150 €. In Juan-les-Pins apartments near the beach will cost 50 €, the same price for a hotel in the center of Toulon.
Food
Cafes and restaurants. The busier the street, the more expensive the food. In Cannes on the main streets of the Old Town, pasta in 2023 costs 25 €, a glass of wine – from 8 €. In less touristy towns like Antibes, prices are 5-10% lower.
To save money, you can order takeaway food. I like to buy hot pizza just from the oven, drinks from the supermarket and eat in the park. Such a meal costs a maximum of 15 €.
Many restaurants in France have set lunches. They cost from 15 €. For this money you can eat an appetizer, main course and dessert.
Stores. Fresh, already sliced steak meat in 2019 cost 4 €, three frozen pizzas cost 3 €, fresh sushi cost 6 €. On average, I spent 20-30 € per trip to the store with a wine purchase. The groceries were enough for two days.
National products. The traditional socca pancake is made from chickpea flour in the oven and costs 4 € in 2023. I did not like it very much and found it tasteless, but for the sake of experimentation you can try it. It should only be eaten hot.
In almost any restaurant on the Côte d’Azur you can order tuna salad “Nicoise”. In hot weather, you don’t want anything else. “Nicoise” in 2023 usually costs 20 €, the portions are large.
Internet
Virtually all restaurants and cafes have affordable wifi. A SIM card of the main mobile operators Orange, SFR, Lebara with 25-50 GB of mobile internet will cost 10-20 € in 2023.
What to bring from the Côte d’Azur
You can bring back local wine, French cheese or chocolate as a souvenir.
Lavender is the symbol of French Provence, which includes the Côte d’Azur. There are many stores in the towns that sell everything from lavender. I once bought lavender tea and since then I can’t imagine leaving Provence without it. A pack of tea bags costs about 6€ in 2023.
Cicadas look like large flies that make loud buzzing noises. You can hear them especially in the evening in the parks. They are also a symbol of the Côte d’Azur, so for friends who collect magnets, you can bring one in the shape of a cicada. A magnet will cost 5-7 €.
Poppy syrup is produced in Provence and used in cooking. It can be added to baking dough. On average it costs 5 € for a 40 ml bottle.
