Nice Travel Forum

Bonjour

Pardon. Je ne parle pas francais tres bien.

Long haul from New Zealand, complete with cycles. My wife and I are arriving Cote d'Azur Airport at Friday 25 April at 13:50.

We're trying to decide whether to get a taxi to our hotel (Stars Antibes, 905 Chemin du Valbosquet, Antibes 06600) or assemble our bikes at the Airport and ride there.

We'd prefer to ride I think. Can you forsee any problems:

1) finding somewhere to assemble at airport?
2) cycling approx 10 km along Blvd de la Plage (is there a cycleway nearby?) towards Antibes then 3 km inland to hotel?

Thanks for any suggestions. Merci.

I make one suggestion
even if your french is not upscale try "piste cyclable nice" (=cycleways). Maps will appear with the "pistes cyclables" in red lines. By try and go you'll probably get useful information

cochize du gard

There are green areas near the airport where you could sit under a tree and do the assembling. Or you could walk under the highway to the Novotel across the street (about 5 minute walk) and there is a park across from there. I think you'll be able to assemble your bikes without any problem.

Traffic shouldn't be a problem; you will probably be going faster than the cars on the road to Antibes. There are wall to wall cars along the coastal road and moving very slowly. We honestly have been passed by bicycles.

If you can find a bike road, that would be excellent, to escape the fumes if for no other reason. I know there is a bike road near Antibes because we used to walk it to the grocery.

Good luck.

Umm, cochize ... where do I type "piste cyclable nice"? I thought you might mean Google Maps or VT Keywords, but tried them.

Keen on seeing maps but not sure where to look!

Thanks

You can actually get walking and biking directions from Michelin. Go to http://www.viamichelin.com/

Type in where you are starting and where you want to go. Then scroll down to Route and choose Bike. Click on search and you'll get a bicycle route to wherever you want to go.

Thanks for Michelin! I now remember being told about this some months ago. Useful site.

Hi
The start of your journey will be on very unpleasant 'voies rapides' or fast roads. There are no cycle roads from the airport.

I would take a cab, if possible, to the western outskirt of Nice and then assemble bikes to make way to Antibes. This would avoid the worst of the journey, i.e. where cars are all in a rush to catch teh motorway a bit further down and nightmare roundabouts.

There was a similar discussion on this forum not so long ago, you could search and see the whole trail or even email the 2 members who were going to cycle from the airport for their feedback.

Thanks Adeline
Not the answer what I really wanted, but thanks for info!

Hello

An update (June 2008):

There is now a cycling path from the airport towards St Laurent du Var, along the road and right next to the river. Another cycling path goes Eastwards towards Nice town and the Promenade des Anglais.

This is all brand new and makes life easier for cyclists arriving at the airport.
A