Nice + Riviera in 5 Days on a Budget
Five Days in Nice: Three Trips Out, and When the Rail Pass Starts to Pay Off
Five days is where a multi-day rail pass starts to make sense. Add up the day-trip fares this itinerary uses (Villefranche, Eze-sur-Mer, Monaco, Antibes, Cannes, several of them stacked into the same day) and you’re closing in on the EUR 35 cost of a 3-day Pass Sud Azur Explore before you’ve left Nice at all.
Book these before you go
- An apartment rental in or near Vieux Nice for five nights: check options on Booking.com .
- Skip-the-queue Matisse or Chagall tickets for Day 2: search GetYourGuide .
- A Riviera day-trip tour covering Antibes and Cannes for Day 5: browse Viator .
| Day | Stop(s) | One-way fare | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Villefranche + Eze-sur-Mer | under EUR 10 round trip combined | Two towns, one line |
| 4 | Monaco | roughly EUR 7 | Full day, sovereign country |
| 5 | Antibes + Cannes | EUR 7-8 (Antibes) | Picasso Museum, La Croisette |
Is 5 days enough for three Nice day trips?
Yes, and it’s the point where a rail pass starts to pay off. Two days cover the city, then Villefranche and Eze share a day, Monaco gets its own full day, and Antibes and Cannes combine on their last shared line. Add a fourth trip and see the 6-day version for when the pass clearly wins.
Quick arrival note
Tram Line 2 into the center, EUR 1.70 a single fare, not the EUR 10 the airport machines push by default (full detail in the 2-day version ). Five nights makes an apartment rental in or near Vieux Nice worth pricing against a hotel; a kitchen for breakfast and the odd cheap dinner in adds up over that many nights.
Days 1 to 2: the city itself
Day 1: Vieux Nice, Cours Saleya, the Promenade, Castle Hill at sunset.
Day 2: the Cimiez cluster, Matisse Museum (EUR 12), the monastery gardens, the Roman arena, and Chagall (EUR 8 to 10) if you want both major collections; skip MAMAC, closed for renovation until 2028.
Day 3: Villefranche and Eze
Villefranche-sur-Mer first (under 10 minutes by train, a couple of euros), then the next eastbound train on the same line to Eze-sur-Mer, followed by the climb up the Chemin de Nietzsche path or bus 83 to the actual perched village (no direct train reaches the hilltop itself, a genuinely common trip-up). Two coastal and hilltop towns, one day, still under EUR 10 in rail fares round trip.
Day 4: Monaco, in full
A sovereign country deserves its own day rather than a stacked half-visit. 20 to 25 minutes each way by train, roughly EUR 7 one-way booked ahead on SNCF Connect . Walk the Rock, the harbor, and the palace grounds; the Casino de Monte-Carlo interior needs a passport, a dress code, and 18-plus, so decide in advance if you’re going in or just admiring the facade from outside.
Day 5: Antibes and Cannes, same line
These two combine naturally, Cannes is only about 7 minutes further down the same track past Antibes. Antibes first, 16 to 23 minutes from Nice, roughly EUR 7 to 8 one-way: the Provencal market, the Picasso Museum in the Chateau Grimaldi where he actually worked, and the old ramparts. Continue to Cannes for La Croisette and Le Suquet’s old town. If you only have energy for one, take Antibes over Cannes, the museum and ramparts give it more to actually do, while Cannes is mostly a walk and a pricier lunch for comparable quality. Worth knowing either way: Cannes capped cruise-ship arrivals from January 1, 2026 (sub-1,000-passenger ships only, 6,000 daily passenger cap), easing the worst of the old cruise-day crowding, at least on paper.
Does the rail pass make sense?
Villefranche and Eze-sur-Mer together run under EUR 10, Monaco round trip lands around EUR 14, and Antibes plus Cannes in one day (Nice to Antibes, on to Cannes, back to Nice) runs somewhere around EUR 20. That’s roughly EUR 44 in point-to-point fares across three days, before a single tram or bus ride inside Nice itself. The Pass Sud Azur Explore runs EUR 35 for 3 days, EUR 50 for 7, and covers TER trains plus local buses and trams across the whole department, including into Monaco. If your three day-trip days land inside any 3-day window, buy the pass before you buy a single ticket; if they’re spread across the full five days, price it out both ways, a spread-out schedule can tip back in favor of individual tickets.
Before you go
Keep a lunch plan for each day-trip day rather than paying market-square prices right before you leave; a pan bagnat from a Vieux Nice boulangerie travels better than it looks. Six days adds a fourth trip and the full case for the pass: see the 6-day version .