Nice, France is a port town with a population of about 350,000 people. It is the fifth largest town in France. We have been going to Nice most summers for the past 25 years, so have quite a bit of experience in getting around Nice and the surrounding Cote d’Azur area. In the early days we always rented a car, primarily to get out of Nice to visit the surrounding towns up and down the coast. But the car would also sit for days while we spent time touring Nice. Parking could be very difficult to find even though there are quite a few underground parking garages scattered around town. But parking wasn’t cheap, garages were often very crowded and the parking spaces were often very narrow and could be difficult to maneuver a car in to.
For the past 15 years or so, we have been relying almost exclusively on public transportation to get around Nice but also to get to other towns in the area. Nice has a great, large port with ferries shuttling passengers to towns up and down the coast as well as to Monaco and various ports on the island of Corsica. Nice also has a great, recently renovated train station just north of the downtown area (about a 15 minute walk from Place Massena). Nice is part of the extensive, mostly on-time French railroad with trains going to most towns along the coast, as well as inland locations. The Nice bus system is also very extensive with local buses criss-crossing the town and taking tourists to near by towns, many of which are not accessible by train. An ancient central bus station was torn down about 5 years ago and now bus stations have been scattered all over town. You can also sit on the beach all-day long and watch planes bring in sun-worshippers to the relatively-modern airport located just to the west end of the town.
In recent years, Nice has begun to focus on getting people around town. In 2007, Nice inaugurated its second-generation tram system (a first-generation system operated in Nice and a few surrounding towns from 1879-1953). This new tramway is a 5.5 mile above ground single line system that carries over 90,000 people a day along a route from the northwest through downtown to the east. Trams run about every 4 minutes via an electrified overhead cable system. A second line is currently under construction and will carry passengers along a 7-mile route from the port in the east part of town to past the airport in the west. The 20-station line is scheduled to begin opening in 2018 with the last stations opening in 2019. Many of the stations in this new line are above ground, but as the line passes through the downtown area, the stations will be located underground. Also, I remember seeing, a few years ago, a prototype tram car positioned on the median of the Promenade des Anglais as perhaps a future system along the sea, but nothing has come of that line since.
