katjoeus

Thanks for the replies! I don't think I'd like to spend the whole day with a tour guide (I'm sure she's wonderful and thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'd rather just be with the hubby :) - we're a bit private that way!).

Hank - I had started looking into the rental car thing a while ago and might still pursue this, it seems like a good option - the only thing is that I'm a little hesitant about the stress factor (I stress rather easily and am just worried that it might spoil the day a bit for me....). But will def. look into it some more....I really would love to show my husband a bit more of Provence, but maybe we'll just do Nice and Eze - both of which I think can rather easily be done by public bus.

Also, it looks like we will be tendering, so that'll take away quite a bit of time....

Hi everyone!

We are soon heading to Europe for a lovely vacay, including a two-week Med cruise. We prefer to organize our own land excursions and would much appreciate any advice / recommendations for some of the stops - since this is the France port forum, namely for Monaco and Ajaccio.

I should add that I have been to Monaco before and do not feel the least desire to spend a lot of time there this time (to be honest, I don't really understand why anyone would want to go there!); when I was much younger, we went to the South of France a few times and I remember the whole "hinterland" to be stunningly beautiful, so I"d much rather delve into that for the day. However, I am not sure how to go about this - our ship doesn't really offer any trips that excite me (plus, they're outrageously expensive!!), so I was wondering whether anyone here has had any experience with planning their own trips into Provence from Monaco? Did anyone use a local company for this - I'm sure there will be offers at the cruise port, but are they reliable and worth it?? I know there are trains and busses into Nice, from where one can take a public bus to e.g. Saint Paul, but that seems rather lengthy and complicated....I just don't know whether I'd be ok relying on public transportation to make it back to the ship on time!!

As for Ajaccio - we would certainly like to spend some time in the town as it seems very nice, and I guess there is a city beach that's easily accessible from the cruise port, but again, we would like to explore the hinterland a bit, too. Ship offers a number of interesting sounding excursions and we might just go with one of those, but are those on offer at the port also (probably much cheaper?)?

Thanks for your thoughts / ideas!!

Just my two cents, very briefly - we went to Toulon on a cruise a couple of years ago and were not exactly full of anticipation. Boy were we wrong! We actually loved the town of Toulon and found it a lot nicer than expected. So make sure you save some time to just walk around the town - if I remember, the centre was very walkable from the cruise port. Much nicer than Marseille!!!! Have fun (oh and as far as what to buy, I recommend chocolate. Even the cheap supermarket brands are SO MUCH better than any US chocolate!! And I agree with the lavender - lavender is very typical for the South of France so would make a nice, original souvenir)