Nice is the fifth largest city in France and the capital of the Riviera, a real working city of 350,000 people that happens to sit on a bay of extraordinary blue. It belonged to the House of Savoy until 1860, which is why the old town looks Italian, the food is half Ligurian and the local dialect is closer to Genoese than to French.
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Packing for it is a question of registers rather than weather. The same day can involve a pebble beach, a morning market, a hill climb to a viewpoint, a museum and a dinner in a city where people dress properly. Nothing on that list is difficult. It just does not fit into one category of clothing.
Two specific things drive the list: the beaches are pebble, not sand, and Monaco has an enforced dress code in the places you have come to see. Everything else is ordinary Mediterranean packing.
What Nice Actually Asks of Your Wardrobe
Pebble beaches
The Baie des Anges is covered in smooth grey stones the size of eggs, not sand. They are hot underfoot in July, hard to walk on in bare feet at any temperature, and the shelf drops away steeply into deep water.
Practically this means water shoes are not optional if you intend to swim, and a padded mat or a proper beach towel makes a large difference to whether lying down is pleasant. Locals bring both as a matter of course.
Monaco and the casino
Monaco is 25 minutes from Nice by train and costs a few euros each way, so almost everyone goes. The Casino de Monte-Carlo enforces a dress code: no shorts, no flip flops, no sportswear, no beachwear, and smart dress in the private gaming rooms in the evening. Identification is required and there is an entry fee for the gaming rooms.
The atrium and the public areas are more relaxed than the salons, but people are turned away daily, usually in shorts and trainers straight off the beach. If Monaco is on the plan, one outfit needs to clear that bar, including the shoes.
The city itself
Nice dresses better than most beach destinations. Beachwear stays on the beach, and walking through the city centre in swimwear is both frowned on and, on the Promenade, technically against local rules. Linen, dresses, decent sandals and a smart flat are the register.
The hills
Castle Hill rises straight out of the old town, Eze is a village clinging to a rock above the sea, and the coastal path around Cap Ferrat is genuinely rocky underfoot. None of it is hiking, all of it wants a shoe with grip.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Season by Season
Spring, March to May
14 to 22 degrees, warming steadily, with rain showers and the odd cool evening. The sea is too cold to swim until late May for most people. The best season for the hill villages and the coastal path. Pack layers and a light rain shell.
Summer, June to August
24 to 30 degrees, humid, very busy, and the sea at its most inviting. Evenings stay warm. This is when the beach gear matters most and when accommodation costs the most. July has the Nice Jazz Festival and Bastille Day, and the city is at capacity.
Autumn, September and October
The best window. 19 to 26 degrees, the sea still warm from summer, crowds thinning from the second week of September, and the light at its best. October brings some heavy rain, which arrives as short violent storms rather than drizzle.
Winter, November to February
9 to 15 degrees, mild by European standards, wetter, and the city quiet and functioning normally. Nothing closes. The Nice Carnival is in February and fills the city again. Pack as you would for a mild European city, with a proper coat for the evenings.
The Nice Packing List
Base layers
Two Roman Trail Women's Merino Wool Base Layers ($49-59). Long sleeve for spring and autumn, when mornings on the coastal path are cool and afternoons are not, and merino handles the swing without a mid-day change. They also work under a jacket in winter and pass as an ordinary top in the evening, which matters when luggage is small.
Outer layers
A Marmot Women's PreCip Eco Rain Jacket ($110) for the autumn storms and the spring showers. It packs to nothing, which is the point on a trip where you carry it more than you wear it.
Add a Columbia Women's Fast Trek II Jacket ($65) between November and March, and for evenings in spring and autumn when the sea breeze turns cold after dark.
Footwear
Three pairs, and each has a job.
Water shoes. The ELETON Barefoot Hiking and Water Shoes ($23.99). For the pebbles, which are the single most complained-about feature of Nice among first-time visitors and the easiest to solve. Also useful on the rocky entries around Villefranche and Cap Ferrat.
A walking shoe with grip. Nice is a walking city, Castle Hill is a climb, Eze is a cobbled scramble and the Cap Ferrat path is rock. Trainers or a light approach shoe.
One smart flat or low sandal. For dinner, for Monaco, and for the evening passeggiata along the Promenade. Not a flip flop.
Clothing
Linen trousers or a midi skirt, two or three dresses depending on trip length, light tops, a swimsuit and a cover-up that reads as clothing rather than as beachwear. One outfit that clears the Monaco dress code, which in practice means a dress or trousers with a smart top, and a shoe that is not a trainer.
Socks: the Darn Tough Women's Hiker Micro Crew Merino Socks ($28), two pairs, for the walking days and the hill villages.
The beach kit
A quick-dry towel or a padded beach mat, which on pebbles is the difference between an hour and five minutes. High-factor sunscreen, reef-safe if you are snorkelling around the capes. A wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, because the light off the water is intense and there is very little shade on the public beaches.
Packing organisation
The Eagle Creek Pack-It Compression Cubes ($39.95) keep the beach half and the city half of the wardrobe separate, which sounds fussy until you are digging through a case for the one outfit that works for Monaco.
The Cours Saleya Morning
The flower and produce market in the old town runs Tuesday to Sunday mornings and closes around one. Monday is the antiques market instead, which is a different thing entirely and worth knowing before you plan around it.
Go early. By ten in high season it is shoulder to shoulder. The stalls sell Provençal produce, socca, olives, candied fruit and cut flowers, and the surrounding cafes are where the town eats breakfast.
Practical notes: bring a folding tote, because plastic bags are not given out; bring some cash, because small producers often do not take cards; and wear something you do not mind getting olive oil on.
Socca, the chickpea flour pancake cooked on a copper disc and served in torn pieces with black pepper, is the thing to eat and it is best straight off the fire. Pissaladière, the onion and anchovy tart, and pan bagnat, the salade niçoise packed into a bread roll, are the other two local specialities.
Monaco: The Practical Version
Trains from Nice-Ville run several times an hour to Monaco-Monte Carlo, take around 25 minutes and cost a few euros each way. Buy at the machine, validate before boarding, and note that the Monaco station is built inside the rock, with exits at different levels of the principality, so take the one for your destination rather than the first you see.
What to see: the Casino and its square, the Hôtel de Paris opposite, the Prince's Palace and the changing of the guard at 11.55, the oceanographic museum built into the cliff, and the Formula 1 circuit, which is simply the public roads.
The dress code applies at the Casino and at the Hôtel de Paris bars. Shorts, flip flops, sportswear and beach clothing are refused. Bring identification. There is an entry fee for the gaming rooms and the private salons dress up further in the evening.
Monaco is expensive in a way that surprises people. A coffee near the Casino costs several times what it does in Nice. Eat before you go, or walk ten minutes away from the square.
Matisse and Chagall in One Afternoon
Both museums are in Cimiez, the hill neighbourhood above the city, and they are close enough to do together comfortably.
The Musée Matisse sits in a red seventeenth-century villa among Roman ruins and olive groves. Matisse lived in Nice from 1917 until his death in 1954, and the collection follows his whole career, including the paper cut-outs of the final years.
The Musée National Marc Chagall, a short walk downhill, was built specifically to house the Biblical Message cycle, seventeen large canvases the artist gave to the French state, shown in a building designed around them with his stained glass and mosaic.
Take bus 5 or 33 up to Cimiez, see Matisse first, walk down to Chagall, and continue on foot into the city. Check current opening days before going, as both close one day a week and the days differ.
Getting Around and Out
Nice itself is walkable, with two tram lines and a flat-fare bus network that is inexpensive and covers the whole Alpes-Maritimes department, including Eze, Menton and the hill villages.
The coastal train line is the better option for the Riviera towns: Villefranche-sur-Mer, Beaulieu, Monaco, Menton in one direction, Antibes and Cannes in the other, all within an hour.
The day trips worth taking: Villefranche, ten minutes away, for the most beautiful harbour on the coast. Eze for the village and the cactus garden on its summit. Menton for the old town and the lemon groves. Antibes for the Picasso museum and the ramparts. Saint-Paul-de-Vence for the Fondation Maeght.
A car is unnecessary along the coast and actively unhelpful in Nice, where parking is expensive and the old town is closed to traffic.
Safety and Practicalities
Nice is a large, safe European city with the ordinary large-city caveats. Pickpocketing happens on the Promenade, at the markets, on the tram and around the station, and bag snatching from cafe tables is the most common tourist complaint. Keep bags closed and in front of you in crowds.
The area immediately around Nice-Ville station is scruffier at night than the rest of the centre. The old town is busy and well lit until late.
Emergency numbers: 112 across Europe, 15 for medical, 17 for police, 18 for fire.
Beaches: the drop-off is steep and the pebble shelf makes exit awkward in swell. Public beaches are lifeguarded in season only, and the flag system is observed.
Water: tap water is safe to drink throughout.
For a woman travelling alone, Nice is straightforward. The Promenade is busy with walkers and runners from dawn, dining alone is entirely unremarkable, the trains along the coast are frequent and well used, and the tourism infrastructure is mature. Attention in the old town bars at night is comparable to any Mediterranean resort city and generally easy to leave behind.
Reading On
Nice is the best base on the French Riviera and an easy first stop in the south. The France travel guide for women covers the country and the Paris travel guide for women the obvious pairing at the other end of the train line. The Nice travel guide for women goes deeper on the city itself, and the merino wool base layer guide explains why two long-sleeve layers cover a trip that runs from a pebble beach to a dinner in Monte Carlo. The full range is at Roman Trail women's merino base layers.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
