My boyfriend came over during the last week of the year (hence my rush to finish writing all the end-of-year posts) and while I don’t want to give myself pressure to blog about the places we visited at the start of the year and the new school semester, I really want to share about the French Riviera Pass! It’s a pass we found while planning his trip around Nice and I thought it was really worth it.

Monaco

We originally planned to go to two places in Monaco with this pass, but as it turns out, the exotic garden in Monaco is temporarily closed for renovation works. It’s a bit of a pity, but there’s always next time!

Oceanographic Museum Monaco

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There are two parts to this museum: the aquarium section in the basement and the cabinet of curiosities as well as a history of how the Royal Family of Monaco has been involved with the exploration and conservation of the ocean. I personally found the first floor to be more interesting, but that’s because I’ve been to the SEA Aquarium at Sentosa and I think that is a bit more impressive.

Nice

Museums

We managed to go to three museums with the pass! Just one thing: If you’re only planning to go to museums, the museum pass cost 15 euros for 72 hours and that may be more worth it for you!

Musée Massena

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This was my favourite museum that we visited! It’s beautiful inside and out, and there are so many things to see. When we visited, there was an exhibition on Napolean – I didn’t really understand it but I thought that the exhibition rooms were so beautiful! There was also an exhibition on film photography and that was pretty interesting too. Overall, the museum was pretty large and we spent quite some time wandering through it.

Musée Lascaris

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Located in Old Nice, this museum looks unassuming on the outside but it’s got really gorgeous interiors. It’s primarily a museum for musical instruments, and there was a special exhibit on religious artefacts when we were there, but my favourite rooms were the ones that preserved what the house was like in the past – they were really beautiful!

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice

This museum had a pretty impressive exterior and the fact that it was an art museum sounded very cool, but it’s under partial renovation so there wasn’t much to see (we were done in about half an hour). It’s a good thing that we went to this with the pass, because I would not have been very happy if we had to pay for the ticket.

Food

Free Socca at Chez Theresa

Socca is known as the fast food of Nice (according to all the tourist sites) so it was nice that Chez Theresa’s socca was included! I’ve had this before and I enjoyed it!

Free cocktail and tortilla chips at Hard Rock Cafe

Unlike the socca at Chez Theresa, you don’t get this to go. I did feel a bit bad for not buying anything at Hard Rock Cafe, but the food there is pretty pricey! We got one cocktail and a bowl of tortilla chips with some cheese sauce per person and it was a nice snack. Hard Rock Cafe is literally next to one of the stops on Nice Le Grand Tour Bus, so this would be nice to do with the bus tour.

Others

Nice Le Grand Tour Bus

I’ve seen these red buses going around Nice a few times so it was fun to finally board one. You can show the pass to the driver at any stop and he’ll issue you a ticket that you can use after that. The bus goes through Nice to Villefranche Sur Mer and the audioguide points out some interesting sights and facts. I liked that the bus provided earphones because I’ve switched to wireless earbuds and wouldn’t be able to listen to the audioguide otherwise.

Parc Phoenix

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This is next to the EDHEC campus and I’ve always wondered what was under the dome – now I know! It feels like a scaled-down version of a zoo and honestly, I would not have come here if it wasn’t for the pass. It’s nice but it’s not particularly impressive

La Crypte Archéologique Nice/Garibaldi Crypt

This is something that I’ve been wanting to do since I missed it during the European Heritage Days! You have to book a spot for this tour at the Centre du Patrimoine and they don’t seem to do tours every day, so I’d recommend booking the tour once you have the pass.

Apparently, the only way you can access the crypt is through a tour and the tour is only in French. I think I understood only 20% of what was being said (namely, these are the ruins of medieval Nice, which you can match to a few paintings) but it was basically pretty cool to be able to go down and see the second crypt found in France!

That’s pretty much all we did, I think! If I had known that the Exotic Museum at Monaco was closed, I wouldn’t have bought the pass for three days, but apart from that, I have no regrets getting this. Using it was pretty convenient and all the places we visited were okay with me showing the PDF file on my phone. But if I ever get this again, I’ll definitely try to find a way to print out the pass because I think it would be easier to show a physical version of the pass.