The Sound Hits You First
It’s not the floats you notice — it’s the drums. Somewhere between the airport tram and your hotel near Place Masséna, you start hearing them: a low, persistent thudding that bounces off the pastel facades of Nice’s old quarter. By the time you reach the Promenade du Paillon, the whole city feels like it’s vibrating at a frequency you can’t quite name.
The Nice Carnival runs from February 14 to 28, 2026 — fifteen days that turn this corner of the French Riviera into something between a street party and an open-air theatre. Over a million people show up each year, which sounds like a tourism brochure stat until you’re actually standing in the crowd and realize you can’t move your elbows.
Three Parades, Three Different Animals
The carnival has three main events, and they’re more different from each other than you’d expect.
The Corso Carnavalesque is the big one — daytime parades with papier-mâché figures that tower over the buildings. The craftsmanship is genuinely impressive. These aren’t inflatable cartoon characters; they’re sculpted satirical figures that local artists spend months building in warehouses outside the city. The themes change every year, and the 2026 edition’s theme usually gets announced a few months ahead on the official site.
Then there’s the Bataille de Fleurs, which is the one everyone photographs. Performers on flower-covered floats toss thousands of fresh stems into the crowd — mimosa, lilies, gerberas, daisies. It happens along the Promenade des Anglais, and the smell is genuinely overwhelming. Not in a perfume-counter way. More like someone emptied an entire florist shop into a wind tunnel. The flowers are real, which means they wilt, which means by the end of the parade the ground is a carpet of crushed petals and it’s oddly beautiful.
The Corso Illuminé is the evening version. Same floats, but lit up. The Mediterranean makes for a good backdrop — dark water, the glow from the Promenade, floats drifting past like luminous creatures. It’s the most photogenic of the three, though your phone camera will struggle with the contrast.
Getting There Without the Headache
Nice Côte d’Azur Airport (NCE) is France’s second-busiest, so flights from most European hubs are easy to find. From the airport, Tram Line 2 takes you into the centre in about 25 minutes. Don’t bother with taxis during carnival — the road closures make them pointless.
Within the city, walking is your best option during parade days. The tram still runs but gets packed. If you’re coming from elsewhere on the Riviera — Monaco, Cannes, Antibes — the TER regional trains are cheap and frequent.
For flights, I’ve found decent deals through CheapOAir for transatlantic routes, though it’s worth comparing with a few aggregators. European budget carriers often have direct Nice routes that don’t show up on all booking sites.
The Honest Survival Guide
Here’s what the tourism board won’t emphasize: carnival Nice is loud, crowded, and occasionally chaotic. Some things to know before you go.
Tickets and seating. The grandstand seats along the parade route cost between €15–30 depending on the event and position. The Bataille de Fleurs seated sections sell out fastest — book through the official carnival website as soon as dates are confirmed. Standing areas are free but “free” means you’re five rows deep unless you arrive an hour early.
Weather. February on the Riviera is mild — daytime around 10–14°C, which feels pleasant in the sun but cold once it drops. The evening parades require a proper jacket. I’ve seen tourists in T-shirts at the Corso Illuminé looking miserable by the second float.
Crowds and pickpockets. A million visitors in a mid-sized city means density. Keep your phone in a front pocket. The areas around Place Masséna get especially packed during the Saturday parades. If you have small children, the weekday parades are significantly calmer.
Phone signal. Expect it to be patchy during and after major parades. If you’re meeting someone, pick a landmark as a backup rendezvous point. The Fontaine du Soleil on Place Masséna is hard to miss.
If you need a local SIM or portable Wi-Fi, AeroBile rents travel SIMs and Wi-Fi devices that work across Europe — useful if you’re hopping between Riviera towns.
Old Town and the Spaces Between Parades
The carnival doesn’t run all day every day, which leaves room to actually experience Nice. And Nice, even without the carnival, is worth the trip.
Vieux Nice is the obvious starting point — narrow lanes, painted shutters, the kind of place where every corner looks like it was designed for Instagram but predates Instagram by about four centuries. The Cours Saleya market runs every morning except Monday, selling flowers, produce, and overpriced lavender sachets. The flower stalls are worth seeing; the tourist trinkets less so.
Castle Hill (Colline du Château) gives you the best panoramic view of the Baie des Anges. The elevator is free. The walk up is steep but short. Go in the late afternoon when the light turns everything golden.
For museums, the Matisse Museum in Cimiez is excellent if you care about Matisse and underwhelming if you don’t — it’s smaller than people expect. MAMAC (the modern art museum) near Place Garibaldi is more eclectic and has a good rooftop terrace.
Eating Your Way Through It
Nice has its own cuisine that’s distinct from the rest of Provence, and carnival season is a good excuse to try all of it.
Socca is the one everyone talks about — a chickpea flour flatbread cooked in massive copper pans over wood fire. Chez Pipo and Chez Thérésa at Cours Saleya are the classic spots, though there’s always an argument about which is better. Get it hot, eat it with your fingers, burn the roof of your mouth. That’s the experience.
Pissaladière is an onion tart with anchovies and olives that sounds simple and kind of is, but done well it’s addictive. Salade niçoise — the real one, not the version with tinned tuna on a bed of iceberg — uses raw vegetables, good olive oil, and anchovies instead of tuna (the tuna version is apparently a Parisian invention, which locals will tell you about with barely concealed annoyance).
For a sit-down meal, the restaurants along Rue Pairolière in Old Town tend to be better value than those directly on Cours Saleya. Not a hard rule, but the ones with the best real estate often charge accordingly.
If you want to book food tours or cooking classes, GetYourGuide has a few options in Nice — the market tour + cooking class combos are popular during carnival season, though I’d check reviews carefully since quality varies.
Where to Sleep
Accommodation during carnival gets expensive and books up fast. The area around Place Masséna and the Promenade des Anglais is the most convenient but also the most overpriced during the festival. The Libération neighbourhood, a 15-minute walk north, is where locals actually live and where you’ll find better-value apartments.
Book early. Like, a month before early. Carnival dates are announced well in advance, and the hotels know exactly what they can charge.
Trip.com often has competitive rates for Nice hotels, especially if you’re flexible on the exact neighbourhood. Worth comparing against Booking.com — sometimes one beats the other by a surprising margin.
After the Last Float
The carnival ends on February 28 with a final parade and the traditional burning of the King — a giant effigy that gets torched on the Promenade while fireworks go off overhead. It’s dramatic and a little pagan and the crowd loves it.
The morning after, the city feels oddly quiet. The confetti is still stuck to everything — in the gutters, in your hair, ground into the soles of your shoes. The cleaning crews are already out by 6 AM. I walked to the beach that morning and found a single crushed gerbera in the sand, still mostly orange. Picked it up, looked at it for a second, put it back.
Some things you just leave where you found them.
