A visit to St. Paul de Vence - Part 2

A visit to St. Paul de Vence - Part 2

St. Paul de Vence is located inland and about 18 miles from both Nice and Cannes which is just a 15 minute drive from the coast. Its location means that you get a great view of the village as you approach from either the La Colle road to the east or the Cagnes-Vence road to the west.

Getting to St. Paul de Vence depends on how you want to travel. However for the last part of the journey you have only two choices, either car or buses as no rail lines go near here. The nearest rail station is in Cagnes-sur-Mer and you can get a bus from there. You can also take one of 20 buses per day which leave from Nice’s Gare Routière, dropping passengers off in St-Paul-de-Vence on their way to Vence. If you’re driving from Nice, take the coastal A8 highway east, and turn inland at Cagnes sur-Mer exit and follow signs north to St Paul de Vence.

If you are driving a car then you should note that in St-Paul’s old town driving is prohibited except to drop off luggage at your hotel. There are a number of car parks down the road from the village but then you have a 10 minute walk up the hill.

Planning the timing of your visit is really important as this will effect just how much you enjoy it. If it is at all possible you should never go in the peak summer months of June to August. The reason for this is that there are only about 300 permanent residents of the town. However last year the visitor count was over two million tourists. When you look at the photos of town that I took in early May you can start to imagine what this would mean.

Basically it' s hard to see anything inside the village except other tourists if you go in the peak period. The village is so packed with tourists that they walk shoulder-to-shoulder through the narrow streets. In ‘off season’ the village is still busy with tourists but as you can see there is room to stroll around and enjoy the place. You also have a chance of finding a table at a café or a seat at a bar.

Now that I have dealt with how to get there and at what time of year we can move on to what you can actually see in the 3rd part of the article.