If you don't have much time and like us, if you want to travel the "Cote D'Azur" region in four days, as the French call us, be prepared to move fast, walk for at least 3-4 hours a day, and drive about 500 km in total. We started our trip by flying from Istanbul to Nice. After we picked up our rental car from the airport, we went to Menton, the easternmost town on our route. It is possible to reach Menton by a car ride of about half an hour. We started exploring after we left our car in the nearest parking lot to the center and took our bathing suits and photography machines with us. Like many other Cote D'Azur towns, Menton is quite cute. There's an "old town", a lovely little marina and 2 public beaches with souvenir shops where you can stroll through the streets and restaurants where you can eat fine food. When we got there it was noon, we discovered it on foot first, then we sipped our rose wines while eating paella and oysters in a restaurant that we caught our eye. This region is very rich in seafood, so if you like it, you can eat plenty of mussels, hysterias, lobsters and fish all over the holidays.
After dinner, we caught our eye on one of the beaches to get into the sea. Both of the beaches were public beaches, everyone settled on the beach with their own umbrella and chair. We didn't see any businesses renting sun loungers or umbrellas. As we prepared to enter the sea, unexpectedly began to droech rain, and when we saw the gray clouds coming towards the mountains, we decided to give up the pleasure of the beach. We're back in the street. Menton is famous for its lemon production and all kinds of lemon products. It is possible to find lemon liqueurs, lemon soaps, lemon jams and confectionery similar to the Lemonoello of italians. In the afternoon, we took our car from the parking lot and set off to Eze, the next stop on our route. About 5 minutes later, we realized that we dropped a wallet in the parking lot with a phone we took on our mobile phone, and although we didn't realize we had lost, we were glad to know that we found it. But when we went back to the parking lot and got the wallet, we saw that all the money was missing! On the first day of our holiday, we started vacationing with a lot of money lost, but we were thankful that we didn't lose credit cards and driver's licenses and moved on. Although Menton is a safe town, we found a wallet on the road, and there were people who would take the money in it. You be careful. Anyway, after a half-hour drive, we reached Eze, an old medieval town set up overlooking the sea from a high hill. Being there during the hours on ak?am is both important to be over the heat and to capture the beautiful light to take beautiful photos 🙂 It's very enjoyable to walk through the streets of The Narrow, to walk in and out of their cute little shops. At the highest point of town, I think the must-see "Jardin d'Eze" (which means eze's garden), has many cactus from many parts of the world. But the main beauty is its location and view. It's a paradise for photographers. Always go with a wide angle lens. Chateau Eza's terrace is perfect if you want to have a drink against the view afterwards. Local roasted wine is served with local olives next to it and delicious. After spending about 2 hours in Eze, we moved to Monaco-Monte Carlo, our next stop. The distances are very close, the traffic was comfortable in the season we arrived. To drive from place to place and park was never a problem.
When we were planning our tour, we were thinking of staying in Monte Carlo on the first night. Nice was among the alternatives. But the final decision was to stay in Cannes for the first two nights, and that's how we arranged our hotel. When we saw Monaco, we knew we were right about our decision. Building on top of the building, a pile of concrete. I think it's pretty far from aesthetics. There's only one exception, which is the fact that if you're interested in luxury cars, it's a must see place. We parked our car in a parking lot close to the famous casino Monte Carlo and started watching luxury cars coming and passing in front of the casino like everyone else. You should sit down at cafe de Paris right next to the casino and watch around with a drink. Then you must enter the casino, you do not have to play, even to see the beauty of the building is enough. The entrance is broke. Unfortunately, it's forbidden to take pictures. It was enough for us to spend a total of 2 hours in Monaco. We set off because our hotel was in Cannes and it was late. After about an hour's drive, we arrived at the hotel around 11:00 p.m. The location of our hotel and itself were more beautiful than we expected. (
Chambres d'Hôtes Bisou)
First of all, he was still chirpy at that time because he was in the restaurants area of Cannes. We found our hotel among the sounds of accordion. It was a very boutique hotel with only 3 rooms. It was very cute with its rooms with high ceilings and a balcony with plenty of cacti. We were very pleased. The owner is an Italian lady, her cousin was there this season to help her and she was always interested in us. We had a good-bye conversation with him every morning while we were having breakfast.
2. We started today after breakfast leaving the hotel and visiting Cannes. As it happened on Saturday, locals had flocked to the fruit, vegetable and flower market, which was formed early. It was also a very appealing market for tourists. Although the fruit and vegetable part were not very different from us due to the Mediterranean climate, the stalls with a variety of cheeseand olives were interesting. And of course I'm interested in the flower stalls. We left the market with a little bunch of pink roses that couldn't stand it. Then we took our car and fell off the road. 2. Our day-to-day route included Antibes, Nice and St. Paul de Vence. First we went to Antibes, half an hour from Cannes. I think it's a lovely town. We put our car in the nearest parking lot to old town and started walking around. Like in Cannes, there's a Sunday here on Saturdays. Apart from the Old town, we visited both the fruit vegetable market and the flea market where antique syllaves were sold. The town was very crowded and lively. One thing about this town is that Picasso lived here sometime in his life. His old house is a museum. Don't look at what I call a house, it's a pretty big building. I suggest you visit the museum and view the view from the terrace. There's no way to be inspired by this view. You have to save 2 hours for Antibes. Nice to travel and eat. You can eat something on your feet in one of the smurf cafes or in the established marketplace. We went to Nice after Antibes. Our journey lasted less than half an hour. The famous km's long nice beach is the closest to the old town by car
We parked our car at the point. You can enter the sea along the beach. There are many different businesses and public beaches. We chose the public beach. The beaches were also very crowded as it was on Saturday. There is no umbrella sun lounger service on the public beaches and the beach is also overflowing, so it's not very comfortable. But the sea is beautiful. After a little bit of a swim and cool, we started our trip to nice old town. Nice must be seen when you're there. Even during the day, it was quite colorful and lively, and I'm sure the part of the restaurants in the evenings is much more lively. You can easily add to your tour to stay in Nice for 1 night. We only spent two hours. My science is that we took a break at the confectionerand ice cream parlors and went for a break and went for a break.
Towards the afternoon, we moved to St. Paul de Vence, a medieval mountain town. We got over a green, narrow mountain road in half an hour. I think it's definitely worth seeing. Great place with narrow streets and perfectly restored buildings. It's especially ideal for art enthusiasts because there are many art galleries and workshops. You can travel in 1 hour. We went to Cannes quickly and came back because we didn't want to be late. Staying in Nice on the first night could have saved us the extra road from commuting, but we also loved our hotel in Cannes, we didn't regret staying for two nights. We arrived in Cannes around 6 p.m. We walked along the beach and looked at luxury cars in front of famous hotels. The beaches were starting to come at that time. You can go out to sea in Cannes, and we didn't have time for him. You can also walk along the street where there are shops, walking in one of the streets that goes down to the beach. Before dinner, we stopped by the hotel for the tiredness of the day, rested and prepared again for dinner. We found a lovely place called LaBravade, where we could walk down the street with restaurants and eat pots of mussels. We ate pot mussels several times on this trip. You should try those with garlic-cream or roquefore sauce. Lobster risotto was another nice flavor. I recommend walking on the beach after dinner. It's pretty moving. The area where our hotel is relatively modest and the area where the public spends time with their children on the beach. As we move along the coast, the number of luxury and socialite floors increases. Unfortunately, we've never met celebrities. We returned to our hotel after a short walk because we were very tired and we were going to depart st. Tropez early the next morning. 3. Our plan was to move to St. Tropez early. The road can take three hours because there's a lot of traffic in high season. We drove around 10:00 and drove this road in an hour.
As soon as we got to St. Tropez, we put our car in a parking lot again and walked to the port (the closest port car park). Although it is a small town, its colorful houses, cafes and restaurants are an impressive town with luxury shops and yachts in the harbour. There are tourists who explore the area during the day. Most restaurants and cafes on the alleys open in the afternoon. We wandered around the old town and port for about an hour and decided to go to the beach with the heat after discovering the surroundings in our hands. Pampelorre beach is the most famous and tall beach, just 10 minutes' drive from St. Tropez. There are many businesses. In general, sun loungers+umbrellas are paid in businesses and range from 20-30 euros per person. We chose cap21, which falls in the middle of the beach. The beach and the sea are really nice. White sand and every tone of blue is a sea… 100 yachts anchored off the beach, who knows, maybe the celebrities were there, but we didn't see anyone again. We spent 4-5 hours on the beach today. We swam, walked along the beach for about an hour, and rested. There are both private businesses and public beach sections on the beach. You can bring your own umbrella and spread it at no cost in the public beach sections. We loved the resort called KonTiki, which we ran into in the middle of the beach. Bungalows near the beach looked very suitable for the family holiday. After the beach enjoyment, we passed to our hotel in the Gassin area, a 5-minute drive from St. Tropez. (
Mas de la Pinède)
If it's expensive for you to stay in St. Tropez, 5-10 min. cheaper options can be found in remote towns. The Gassin region is a lush area surrounded by local pine trees, with vineyards and farmhouses. And where we stayed was a farmhouse, not a hotel. We liked the position in the greenery, seeing the sea from the top. But it wasn't too comfortable to stay for more than 1 night. Bringing our homeowner's breakfast to our room with a tray and enjoying breakfast on the balcony was the best part. Anyway, I skipped dinner and suddenly went to breakfast, and now let's get back to St. Tropez's evening. After we prepared at the hotel, we went to St. Tropez before dark. After wandering the harbor until sunset, we saw a restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the food of la pesquiere restaurant, which is very good. The tables were so close to each other that we became friends with the German family at our next table.
The best part of the night was the post-dinner harbour walk. The lamborginis were starting to move around. There were all sorts of people on luxury yachts, from partyers to ordinary people taking pictures in front of cars and yachts. So we got involved in the photography section and ended the night with a huge cone Italian ice cream. A taste that must be tried with tiramisu, pannacota, creambrule and many more delicious varieties.
3. Nowadays, after a little rest, 4. We started the day again with a busy schedule. We left the hotel around 9:00 in the morning after breakfast. Our first goal was to reach Port du Fondue, the port of Hyeres, and then take a boat to porquerolles island. We took this road in an hour. Luckily we caught the boat at 10:30 and arrived on the island in 20 minutes. We knew in advance that there was only access by bike on the island. We immediately rented our bikes and took a pleasant 20-minute drive to plage de Notre Dame, a piece from heaven. You have to be prepared for your Robinson Cruso life, you have to wear your bikinis and swimsuits on one side because there's no cabin. There was no toilet, or I couldn't see it. It's a good idea to throw something out of your bag for drinks and food.
There's no umbrella sun lounger. Fortunately during daylight hours, the beach is mostly protected by a pine shade so you don't have the risk of roasting in the sun. After all, we appreciated the families who came to this secluded beach with their tiny babies. As for the sea and the sand, the sand is thin and white and every shade of sea turquoise. We spent about an hour on the beach and returned to the port on our bikes. There are fresh and delicious seafood in the restaurants again. We ate in Il Pescatore and we were very pleased. After dinner, we drove back by boat at 2:00 p.m. and took our car out of the parking lot and moved on.
We arrived at the next stop, Cassis, on an hour's drive. This is the town where we found the hardest parking lot, but we finally found it. We've been able to get to the harbor from the streets of Darcik. Colorful houses and fishing boats and oil paintings resemble a painting, I think it's definitely a town to see. If you want, after visiting the town, you can see hidden beaches among the steep cliffs called nearby Calanques with a 45-minute boat tour. But these tours are just for sightseeing and you can't get into the sea. If you have suitable walking shoes with you, you can reach these beaches by foot and enter the sea. We did this boat trip in the afternoon. The sea was quite choppy and we didn't understand the beaches too much, so I don't recommend it much. On the return of the tour, we immediately cooled off in the turquoise waters of the public beach behind the port. Wrap it in the towel again and be prepared to change the top.
Cassis is just half an hour from Marseille, where we stayed on our last night and is a much more charming place. For this reason, you can pick up the return plane from Marseille and stay in Cassis. We went there in the afternoon to see Marseilles. Our hotel was right in the old harbor. After all the lovely little towns we've seen over four days, Marseille is big, complicated, filthy and too cosmopolitan. We've seen people of all nationalities, races. It was disturbing to have no work and groups of men in 5s and 10s waiting to pick.
After all, it was fun to watch the sunset from the old port. With its high location, Basilique Notre Dame de Garde can also be a good alternative to watching the sunset. We saw it before we went to the airport the next morning. We found a mussel to eat after sunset again. When we asked the waiters where we could visit, they said, "It's not safe at this hour anymore, it's not safe, they're going to go out in the morning! It was only 10:00. So after dinner, we walked along the harbor again and returned to the hotel. The city looks beautiful with night lighting, but we didn't like the view we saw the next morning. It was a port and industrial city. Still, there are places where we can't visit but it's beautiful. We had breakfast in a café and passed to the airport. Thus, our 4-day trip was completed with beautiful memories and photographs.
Footnote:
– We made all these journeys between towns mostly using the highway so we could get rid of traffic and get to the places where we would go faster. If you're going to use a highway, keep a lot of coins with you.
– The red sections show the route on the map above.
plenty of travel days
Bay