Weekend Breaks in Nice France

Nice Arrival

We Arrived by air with EasyJet into terminal 2. BA also serves Nice but their Sunday morning flight isn’t city break friendly departing at 8:00am. Take the 98 (quatre vingt dix huit) from the bus stop bays outside to the right of where you clear le douanne. It’s the end of the line (the bus line) so there is no direction to worry about. It’s  4 euros for a day pass and we didn’t seem to find a cheaper  fare – so you might like to keep the card in case you want to use a tram. We stayed at Le Meridien next to the jardin Albert just close enough to the old town vieille ville and close enough (as you can get) to the sea (there are no hotels on the sea proper the road and the pedestrianised Boulevarde Des Anglais are instead).

The hotel is not one of the cheapest but by using our hotel comparison website we were able to get a basic room cheap in a high class hotel. The room didn’t have a sea view nor a view over the Albert gardens but it was comfortable enough – very comfortable. Make  sure to enjoy the rest of the hotel. The features of which are a spa and the piece de la resistance the roof terrace and pool. The views here are magnificent over the bay of Nice and to the mountains behind, the drinks are not cheap (6 euros for a diet coke) but here is the time to pamper yourself quality not quantity. The lack of free internet is an annoyance after you pay so much for the room. Ruhl Plage is the name of the closest managed beach restaurant and this costs 21 euros for a package for Le Meridian guests another thing which should perhaps be better for guests – I don’t think there is any saving if you are a guest or not. A managed beach is one that has umbrellas and sunbeds and carpets to help with the discomfort of the large pebbles that nice plage is famous for. Personally the lack of sand isn’t all bad for example half way through my run down the boulevard des anglais I couldn’t resist a dip in the sea (on a sand beach this would cause discomfort for the rest of the run but not here). It’s the perfect place to go rollerblading too or just take a stroll and go people watching. With no sand to worry about I was able to dry myself and continue my run.

Nice Shopping

You can also shop down the main shopping avenue though closer to the hotel there are boutique sweet shops and some places to grab a bite – nothing is beyond walking which is great – le gare SNCF (French for train station ;) ) is a 15 minute walk up the main shopping boulevard Avenue Jean Medecin. Luckily as you are short on time you can grab the tram up there or a cab. Why grab a train – well in a short weekend I would recommend St Juan Le Pins or Antibes or Monaco the latter you can forget if you want some fun the most to be had is in les pins but Antibes is cool for a half day – evening is a bit quiet though still pleasant. In the evening you may find Nice has enough nightlife for you do check out the obligatory Irish bar in the French town or hit Shapko for some cool live jazz music.
There is a theatre and some shows with dinner in the casinos almost next door again for a different kind of entertainment. If you are so inclined you will find a place to dance in a nightclub though we are far too fatigued to do this it would have been nice. We didn’t discover anywhere just milling around old town and we probably peaked too early being in our late 30’s and the thought of our lush bed was too much of an attraction. Shame we left in the wrong direction and had a long walk via the port around the castle and back on the ocean road. The missus heels had a hammering but there was something kind of brilliant for me to be back in France in the early hours and wandering the streets a few too many happy hour long island ice teas perhaps.

Airport Taxi Nice

The return

Long story short as I can an electrical storm backed up flights and easyjet trying to save money finally cancelled out 3:30 flight at 1am when hundreds of people were trying to get limited taxi service to hotels – waiting a further 1-2 hours to get a cab to a mediocre hotel. I knew when I booked with easy jet that if it goes ok then its ok but just when things go bad they really don’t care. It was such a shame that they could have told us earlier and didn’t instead kept dangling the carrot. In the end the best they COULD  (really ?) do was 10:30 departure next morning. Then have the audacity to charge us for refreshment on the plane. No real apology just boilerplate chatter and an awful experience. If I can avoid to pay them a single cent in future that is my choice. For now I am left with no real meaningful way to complain. I can only imagine that us cattle class of the future will get it even worse if the trend continues. And it is really how people are herded or kept in waiting in a pen (departure hall) that is what is at fault here. I would have paid out of my own pocket a hotel room just that we thought we might get a flight home and could pick up our 15 month old daughter and relieve her carers not to mention get to work on time Monday am.

Don’t let our sour end note dissuade you from a weekend break to Nice its more than nice.

Photo by Gabriel Tovar