When traveling from Nice to Italy you would really be missing out if you went for the easy but uninspiring route down the A8. Instead, chose one of the three Corniche.
For Monaco, chose the Corniche Inferieure, which will guide you along the coast, or the Moyenne Corniche, the spiritual home of sports cars and film stars. Monaco is as you would expect, greatly compacted glamor. If you like to gamble and people watch then you would be foolish to avoid a stop here.
But I'm rather scruffy, so I went for the Grande Corniche. The Grande Corniche is the highest of the three, with beautiful sea views from a mountain trail. On clear days you can even see Corsica. This road overlooks the picturesque Eze, so you can briefly see the sites without braving summer crowds. There are few places to stop along the way, so when you find one take a moment to pause and savor the view. Some may consider these roads to be “hairpins” but next to the roads across the Pyrenees it is highly civilized. This is the sort of driving that makes you feel alive, a real buzz that does not need the pop-culture anchor point of the lower Corniche.
Despite being the longest route of the three, by necessity as it winds up the mountain itself, the Grande Corniche is the least likely to be congested. Locals go for the coast road, and tourists for the Moyenne Corniche. I am bemused as to why more do not choose the top road, since the sights here are unrivaled.
But all too soon the journey is over and we pass, without comment, through the unmanned border control into Italy. After all, we are all Europeans now. It seems that either side of the Rivera has become a sort of fusion. You will find pizza parlors all over St Tropez and the menus in San Remo are also written in French. The only clue that you are in another country is the change in language around you.
Hopping over the border will lead you to a number of tourist-aimed shops. You will not find the usual beach themed shops, but will come across bootleg alcohol shops. These are towns that know their market. You will find good pizza with minimal effort, but decent ice cream takes more of a hunt.
If you want to go to a real Italian market, head to Ventimiglia on a Friday. You will find yourself joined by numerous French and Italian people, as well as tourists. If you wish, head back on the Moyenne Corniche to see Monaco and Eze by night. This way you can experience two of the Corniche on one journey. Once again, you could go for the auto route and bypass the more intriguing roads, but you would be missing out on a spirit of adventure.
