Getting around the French Riviera: train, tram, bus or car

Four systems, one coast

The French Riviera doesn’t run on a single transport network, and that’s exactly why it confuses first-time visitors. Inside Nice, a tram gets you across town. Along the coast, a regional train links town centre to town centre from Cannes to Menton. Around Nice itself, city buses cover the streets the tram doesn’t reach, and a separate regional bus brand reaches villages and towns the train skips. And for the hills above the coast, none of this helps at all — you need a car, an organised tour, or a lot of patience.

This page won’t repeat the timetables, fares or platform numbers you’ll find on the four pages it links to: the tram guide, the coastal train guide, the bus guide and the airport transfer guide. What it does instead is help you decide, before you open any of those, which mode of transport actually fits the day you’re planning.

The short version

You want to reach	Best option	Why
Somewhere inside Nice	Tram or on foot	Two lines cover the centre, the sea front and Cimiez
Cannes, Antibes, Villefranche, Monaco, Menton	Coastal train (TER)	One line, town centre to town centre, no driving or parking
Nice suburbs (Mont Boron, Cimiez outskirts)	Lignes d’Azur bus	Fills the gaps the tram doesn’t reach
A village or another Riviera town off the rail line	Zou! regional bus	Fewer departures than the train, but it gets there
Èze, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse	Car, tour, or bus with patience	Perched above the coast; public transport is slow or thin
Mercantour, Verdon gorge	Car or organised day trip	No train or regular bus reaches either
Airport to city centre	Tram line 2, bus or taxi	See the dedicated transfer guide

The train: the backbone of the coast

If there’s one piece of infrastructure that makes the Riviera easy without a car, it’s the coastal train. It runs along a single line from Cannes through Antibes, Nice, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Èze-sur-Mer, Monaco and on to Menton and the Italian border at Ventimiglia. Stations sit close to town centres — you get off at Villefranche-sur-Mer or Monaco and you’re already there, no transfer, no parking search.

In practical terms, this means most of a Riviera itinerary east and west of Nice can be built around train stops rather than car journeys. It’s also often the faster option in July and August, when the coast road through Villefranche and Beaulieu backs up and every seafront car park fills before midday. The trade-off is frequency outside peak hours and the fact that hill villages — Èze village itself, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse — sit above their nearest station, reachable by a connecting bus or a steep walk rather than the train itself.

Full details, including which stations serve which towns, live on the coastal train guide.

The tram: Nice only

The tram is a Nice tool, not a Riviera-wide one. Two lines cross the city, connecting the airport, the centre around Place Masséna, and the port; it doesn’t leave the city limits. If your day is entirely inside Nice — Vieux-Nice, the Promenade des Anglais, Cimiez, the port — the tram plus walking covers nearly everything. It’s not the tool for reaching Cannes, Monaco or the villages; that’s the train or the bus. Route details are on the tram guide.

Buses: two different networks with two different jobs

This is where visitors most often get confused, because “the bus” on the Riviera actually means two separate systems with different coverage.

Lignes d’Azur is the network inside greater Nice — the metropolitan area, including some suburbs the tram doesn’t reach. It’s a city network, useful for filling small gaps, not for getting to another town.

Zou! is the regional brand that connects villages and towns across the wider Riviera and the Alpes-Maritimes department, including some of the places the coastal train skips. It’s slower and less frequent than the train, and it’s the option for a village that has no station of its own, but it does get there without a car.

Neither network is the fastest way to cover long distances, and neither replaces the train for the coast. Where they earn their place is exactly the gap between “on the train line” and “needs a car” — a handful of villages and suburbs a short bus ride from a station. Full route information is on the bus guide.

The car: skip it in Nice, keep it for the hills

Renting a car to explore Nice itself is close to pointless. Parking is scarce and often expensive, much of the centre sits inside a low-emission zone, and everything you’d want in Nice — the old town, the sea front, the museums — is walkable or a short tram ride away. Visitors who arrive with a rental car and a hotel in central Nice usually end up paying for a parking space they barely use.

Where a car changes the trip is the hinterland. The perched villages above the coast — Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Vence, Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Gourdon — are close together by road but awkward to link by public transport in a single day. The Verdon gorge and the Mercantour hinterland have no train service and only limited, infrequent bus links, so a self-drive day or an organised excursion is the realistic option for both. Full guidance on renting and driving conditions is on the car rental guide and the driving and parking guide.

Choosing by destination

Rather than choosing a transport mode first, it usually works better to start from where you’re going and let that decide the mode.

East of Nice — Villefranche, Cap-Ferrat, Beaulieu, Èze, Monaco, Menton. All sit on or near the coastal train line, making this the easiest half-day or full-day stretch to do without a car. Villefranche, Beaulieu, Monaco and Menton are direct from the station; Èze village needs the extra climb or a connecting bus from Èze-sur-Mer. See the Monaco day trip guide and the Èze day trip guide for the specifics of each stop, and the transport options to Monaco page for a closer comparison of train, bus and drive for that leg specifically.

West of Nice — Antibes, Cannes, Juan-les-Pins, Biot. Also on the same coastal line, and just as easy without a car. Cannes in particular is a straightforward train ride, with the Cannes transport comparison covering that specific leg in more depth, and the Lérins Islands reachable by boat once you’re in Cannes.

Perched villages — Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse, Vence, Gourdon. Public transport exists but with fewer departures, so a car or an organised tour is the more time-efficient choice, especially if you want to combine two or three villages in a day. The perched villages road trip itinerary lays out one way to link them.

Hinterland — Mercantour, Verdon gorge. No train, thin bus service: this is car or organised excursion territory, full stop. The Verdon gorge day trip guide and the Mercantour day trip guide both assume a car or a tour bus for the journey itself.

Without a car at all. If you’d rather not drive on this trip, it’s a genuinely viable choice on the Riviera — more so than in most of France — as long as you accept that the hinterland and most perched villages stay out of reach or need an organised tour to fill that gap. The Riviera without a car itinerary is built around exactly that constraint.

Where an organised day trip fills the gap

For the places public transport handles badly — several villages in one day, or the hinterland — a guided day trip from Nice often ends up cheaper and less stressful than renting a car for a single day, parking repeatedly, and navigating unfamiliar mountain roads. A tour covering several Riviera towns in one day, such as a full-day tour across the Riviera’s highlights from Nice or a private full-day trip through five Riviera towns, removes the transport decision entirely for that day — useful if you’ve only got one day to spare and want to see more than the train line alone would allow. For a different angle on the same geography, a shared helicopter flight over the coast shows the corniches and the bay from above rather than from the road.

These tours are worth booking for a specific day where ground transport would eat into your time, not as a replacement for the train on an easy coastal day — the train is usually simpler and cheaper for Villefranche, Monaco or Cannes on their own.

A realistic week

A useful way to think about a week on the Riviera: base yourself in Nice, use the tram for anything inside the city, take the train east and west on separate days for the coastal towns, and reserve one or two days — by car, bus, or organised tour — for whichever hinterland or village stretch interests you most. Trying to cover the coast and the hills on the same day usually means rushing both. The one-week Riviera itinerary and the shorter three-day itinerary both build in that split rather than cramming everything into consecutive days.

Common mistakes

Renting a car for the whole trip “to be safe,” then discovering Nice’s parking situation on day one, is the most common one. So is assuming the train reaches every village — it reaches the coast, not the hills. And travellers heading east from Nice sometimes assume Èze is a station stop like Monaco or Villefranche; it isn’t, the village sits above Èze-sur-Mer, and the climb or connecting bus needs to be part of the plan, not a surprise.

Getting around the French Riviera: frequently asked questions

Do I need a car on the French Riviera?

Not for the coast. Nice, Cannes, Antibes, Villefranche, Monaco and Menton are all on the same train line, and Nice itself has trams and buses. A car becomes useful once you want the perched villages, the Verdon gorge or the Mercantour hinterland, which the train doesn’t reach.

What’s the difference between the tram, Lignes d’Azur and Zou!?

The tram runs inside Nice on two lines. Lignes d’Azur is the bus network for the Nice metropolitan area (Nice and its immediate suburbs). Zou! is the regional bus brand that connects villages and other Riviera towns that the train doesn’t serve directly.

Is the train along the coast slower than driving?

Usually not, and it’s often faster in summer, when coastal roads through Villefranche, Beaulieu and Monaco crawl in traffic and parking is scarce or expensive. The train runs close to the coastline and drops you in the centre of each town.

Can I do Monaco, Èze and Menton by train in one day?

Yes, they’re all on the same coastal line east of Nice, though Èze village itself sits above the Èze-sur-Mer train station on a steep path or a connecting bus, not right at the platform.

Do I need a car for Saint-Paul-de-Vence or Grasse?

Public transport reaches both, but with fewer departures and longer journeys than the coastal train. A car or an organised day trip is usually more practical, especially if you’re combining several perched villages in one day.

Is parking difficult in Nice?

Yes. Nice has a low-emission zone, expensive on-street parking, and few spaces near the centre, which is why most visitors staying in Nice itself don’t rent a car at all.

How do I get from Nice airport to the city centre?

The tram (line 2) connects the airport terminals to central Nice and on to the port, alongside bus and taxi options.

What about getting to Saint-Tropez or the Verdon gorge?

Both are day-trip distances from Nice, over an hour each way by road, and are usually visited by car, organised excursion, or, for Saint-Tropez in season, boat from Nice or Cannes.