Nice guide
Nice will welcome you perfectly well. It simply did not wait for you to exist, gari. Remember that and we will all get along.
Every summer, the same niocou tries to do Old Nice, Èze, Monaco and Menton before aperitivo. Calm down. Nice is a real city, with working neighbourhoods, early markets and locals who have no desire to become extras in your stories. You are welcome. Mèfi: welcome is not ownership.
If you only have one day
Cours Saleya before everyone else
From Tuesday to Sunday the market fills Old Nice in the morning. Monday is antiques day. Go early. At noon in August you are not discovering Cours Saleya, pichoun, you are attending a convention. Do not play the paillassou afterwards and complain that nobody knows the good places anymore. You all arrived together.
Castle Hill
For the view over the Baie des Anges, Old Nice and the Port. There is no castle. Louis XIV dealt with that. The name survived beautifully.
Eat Niçoise food, not necessarily on the seafront
Socca, petits farcis, daube, pissaladière, chard pie. Mèfi: a six-page menu in five languages and a waiter waving at you from the pavement are not signs of local authenticity.
The Port and Cap de Nice
Walk east through Port Lympia towards Franck Pilatte. The city quietens, the coastline gets rockier and the coastal path continues beyond La Réserve above Coco Beach.
Swim
Ponchettes for convenience. La Réserve or Coco Beach if you want the eastern side of town. In summer, supervised beaches operate to published hours. The Mediterranean does not read them.
For a first Riviera trip, stay in Nice rather than Cannes. More city, more contrast, better transport. Cannes will recover. And if your plan contains four towns in forty-eight hours, that is not a holiday. It is a cagade with bookings.
If you have a second day
Cimiez
Head uphill for a different city: the Matisse Museum, Roman remains, olive gardens and the monastery gardens sit close together. The Matisse Museum is closed on Tuesdays. Useful information, particularly on a Tuesday.
Old Nice with no objective
Go back without an itinerary. An old town is perfectly capable of surviving ten minutes without Google Maps.
From the airport
Tram line 2 serves both terminals, Jean Médecin and Port Lympia. Lignes d’Azur currently states roughly one airport tram every eight minutes on weekdays. The dedicated Aéro return ticket is currently listed at €10. Check before travelling, because public transport occasionally develops new opinions.
What we would not do
Spend the entire trip on the Promenade des Anglais. Nearly 7 km, very beautiful, still not the whole city.
Do Nice, Èze, Monaco and Menton in one day. You will return with excellent station photography and very little memory of the places between the stations.
Arrive at Cours Saleya at noon in August and complain that Nice is touristy. Hu. You and half of Europe had exactly the same idea. Dégun set a trap for you. You are the trap.