How to get to the Riviera by train: a quick guide

Riviera Route welcomes clients to the sunny Riviera from all over Europe. The gateway to the Riviera is Nice, which is home to France's busiest airport outside of Paris. But increasingly, people are also interested in low-emission train journeys for environmental reasons. The good news is that Nice is also one of Europe's best connected cities by public transport, so the Riviera can still be enjoyed by all.

Travelling to the Riviera by rail is a comfortable way to lower your carbon footprint

Train passengers from the UK can take the regular Eurostar service from London to Lille in Northern France and, from there, change to one of the many daily TGV services to Nice, bypassing Paris to save time and effort. If setting out from the French capital, the good news is the direct TGV train from Gare de Lyon to Nice takes less than six hours and can cost as little as €25 when booked in advance.

Visitors from the Belgium and the Netherlands can easily connect by Thalys train via Lille or Paris, or indeed take the direct high-speed TGV service connecting Brussels to Nice every Friday (returning to Brussels on the Saturday).

Every day, there are dozens of regional trains connecting Nice with Ventimiglia in Italy, from where you can catch fast intercity trains to Rome, Genoa, Turin and Milan. Nice is also connected with direct Thello trains to Milan, where high-speed services link up the Lombard capital with the rest of the Italian peninsula and Switzerland.

Choose the hubs of Lille and Milan for direct services to Nice

German passengers have two options; either getting to Paris or Lille and then enjoying the scenic route south directly to Nice, or alternatively crossing the Alps, with regular fast connections between Munich and Milan, and changing in Milan for the direct Thello trains to Nice (stopping in Sanremo and Monaco-Monte Carlo along the way). Similarly, visitors from Copenhagen, Stockholm and Gothenburg are best served through the Munich-Milan train line.

Those who enjoy the romantic experience of a long train journey can enjoy the direct weekly services linking Nice with Central and Eastern Europe. The RZU 017Б leaves Moscow every Thursday afternoon and calls at Minsk, Warsaw, Bratislava, Vienna and several other cities before reaching the sunny Cote d’Azur on the Saturday afternoon (returning to Moscow on the Sunday morning on the 018Б service). Although three days on a train may seem like an adventurous choice, the option of sleeping coaches and first class service can make this a pleasurable experience.

You can go as far as Moscow on a weekly direct train from Nice

In addition to trains, new Flixbus services connect Nice directly with the Swiss cities of Zurich and Lausanne by coach, and they offer a carbon-offset tariff, allowing travellers to mitigate the emissions from their trip by a scheme that plants trees and repairs environmental damage.

Going green does not mean we have to stop exploring the joys Europe has to offer. Nice and the Riviera are well-placed to welcome environmentally-conscious travellers for decades to come.