Nice Travel Forum

Hi there I am flying in on Friday night at 6pm and need to get to St. Tropez. I was wondering the best way as i dont speak French? I heard the train was the way, if so where do i catch that from and will one be running that late at night or should i get a hotel and come the following day? Any help would be much appreciated.
Regards
Alex Malone

I seem to remember answering a similar question a couple of months ago. There is no direct train, you have to go to St. Raphael by train and then a bus to st. Trop.

Hi,
I just got this off the Wikipedia website:

"The best and most reliable way to get from the Airport to central Nice or the Nice Ville train station is the airport express buses. Take the 98 to the Nice bus station (Gare Routiere) or take the 99 to the Nice main railway station (Gare Nice Ville SNCF). Routes 98 and 99 cost just €4 and are accessible from both T1 and T2. They run every 30 minutes during the following hours: the 98 from 6AM to midnight, and the 99 from 8AM to 9PM. Pay the driver on boarding and the ticket acts as a "Pass de Jour" for unlimited travel on local buses and the tram that day. The airport website [3] has information and timetables for ground transportation. The cheapest connection with Nice is the local bus service 23 (Terminal 1 only), costing €1, and running between 5:30AM and 8:05PM."

Okay, so that gets you to Nice Ville Station where you can get trains all day up till about 9pm to St Raphael. Unfortunately the last bus from St Raphael to St Tropez goes at around 7pm or thereabouts. (They go about every two hours from early morning). The bus takes about 1hr 50min to get to St Tropes.

To answer your question, depending on what time you get to Nice, you will probably need to overnight in Nice and proceed to St Tropez the following day. Go to www.venere.com or www.bookings.com for some good, well priced hotels with believable reviews. Have a good trip.

As previous posters have noted (hey! I wrote a lot of the of the Nice Wikitravel - get the full SP here - http://wikitravel.org/en/Nice), your evening arrival means you will probably not be able to get beyond St Raphael train station at that time of night by public transport.

You really have two choices - to book in somewhere overnight hotel in Nice, and next day take an early-ish train to St Raphael. From there you can take bus, but the nicest way is to walk down to the Port to Bateaux St Raphael and they have a ferry direct to St Tropez, with around five crossings a day.

The other choice is to get to St Raphael and fork out for a taxi from St Raphael to St Tropez. Don't expect it to be cheap, but then the hotel in Nice will set you back at least £40, so its a straight choice - you will have to pay whichever.

The catch with a lot of low-cost airlines is they are no longer low cost if arriving at night, as French public transport mostly closes down for the evening.

Cheers

Go for the ferry option. I imagine it would be beautiful!