Port Lympia is the harbour that surprises people. They expect a yacht marina painted onto the Riviera and they find a working commercial port: ferries to Corsica loading cars, a fuel terminal, cruise passengers, and recreational boats squeezed in among it all. The ochre and red buildings around the basin, the ones you see in every photograph of Nice, were a fishing and trading port long before anyone came here for the beach, and the place still earns its living.
For a visiting crew that makes Port Lympia both rewarding and a little demanding. You get to tie up a short walk from one of the great Mediterranean cities. You also have to share the water with 5,000-tonne ferries that have absolute right of way and no interest in your right of anything.
The layout: a port doing several jobs at once
Port Lympia holds around 530 berths in total. Of those, roughly 478 are for recreational boats under 18 metres, with about 35 yachting berths sized for vessels of 18 to 30 metres, plus a handful of larger berths that can take ships up to 190 metres along the commercial side. The basin is split into named sections, the Infernet and Admiral basins on the deeper side, the Lympia basin shallower at around 4.5 metres, and the Commerce quay where the big stuff works.
Depths are generous for a cruiser. The entrance carries about 8 metres, the Infernet basin 7.1 metres, the Admiral basin 6.5 metres, and the Commerce quay 6.8 metres. Only the Lympia basin at 4.5 metres asks any question of a deep-draught boat, and even that is fine for most. As across this coast there is no tide to speak of, so the depth on the chart is the depth you get.
Call ahead on VHF channel 9 for the marina, keeping 16 open for the working traffic. Do not improvise your arrival here. The capitainerie will give you a berth and, crucially, a sense of when the ferries are moving.
The ferry problem, and how to not be a problem
This is the one thing every visiting skipper must internalise about Nice. The port is the mainland hub for ferries to Corsica and Sardinia, with up to 14 weekly departures running to Ajaccio, Bastia, L'Ile Rousse and Calvi on Corsica and Golfo Aranci on Sardinia. These ships are enormous, they manoeuvre in a confined space, and the entrance channel is theirs when they want it.
The rule is simple. If a ferry is moving, you are not. Hold well clear of the entrance, listen on 16, and if in any doubt wait outside until the channel is plainly clear. The harbour is sheltered from every direction except the southeast and south, so the worst case of loitering off the entrance in a settled forecast is a few minutes of patience, not danger. I have watched a charter crew try to nip in ahead of a Corsica Ferries departure and get a blast on the ship's horn that they will hear in their sleep for years.
What it costs to stay
Nice is not cheap, but it is not Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat next door either. In a survey of Riviera marinas, an annual berth at Nice ran to roughly 5,250 euros for a 10 metre boat and 7,410 euros for a 12 metre one, sitting comfortably below the eastern extremes. Nightly visitor rates track that mid-to-upper position. The full picture of who charges what, and why the eastern harbours bleed you while the western ones do not, is something I lay out in my breakdown of marina fees on the Cote d'Azur.
What you are paying for at Nice, beyond the water, is the location. Very few harbours on this coast put you on foot in a city this size, with an old town, museums, an opera house and an international airport all within reach of your pontoon. That access is the whole argument for berthing here rather than anchoring out.
Ashore: a city, not a resort
Step off the boat and Nice is genuinely yours. The Vieux Nice, the old town behind the port, is a warren of narrow streets, the Cours Saleya flower and food market, and some of the best cheap eating on the Riviera. The Promenade des Anglais and the pebble beaches are a fifteen-minute walk along the front. The tram and the airport make this the easiest place on the coast to swap crew, which is exactly why I use it for that.
For provisioning a boat properly, Nice beats almost anywhere else on the coast. Real supermarkets, real markets, chandlers, and everything a long cruise needs to restock. If you are heading on to Corsica under your own keel, this is the place to fill the lockers first.
Nice as a springboard
Nice sits at the eastern end of the Riviera, which makes it a launch point in two directions.
- West along the coast you have Villefranche and Cap Ferrat within a couple of miles, where the deep sheltered bays let you anchor for free, covered in my guide to the Cap Ferrat and Villefranche bays.
- East lies Monaco and the Italian border, an easy day sail.
- South, across open water, lies Corsica. The ferries do Nice to Bastia in around six and a half hours over roughly 140 nautical miles, which gives you a sense of the passage if you are tempted to make it under sail, a crossing I set out in my piece on arriving at Bastia, northern Corsica.
If you want the whole regional picture before committing to a route, my French Riviera sailing guide places Nice in the context of the wider cruise.
Shelter, swell and where the wind hurts
Port Lympia is sheltered from most directions, but it has a weakness, and it is worth knowing before you book. The harbour is exposed to the southeast and south, the sectors that bring swell straight into the entrance in a sirocco or a building southerly. In settled summer weather, with the gentle afternoon sea breeze from the southwest, the basin is comfortable. In a southeasterly blow, a swell can work in and set the boats rolling against their lines, particularly nearer the entrance. If a southerly is forecast, ask the capitainerie for a berth deeper in the basin rather than near the mouth.
The mistral, the cold northwesterly that troubles the western Riviera, is less of a direct threat here at the eastern end of the coast, because the land takes the edge off it before it reaches Nice. But it can still funnel and gust, and it kicks up the open water you would cross heading west or south, so it shapes your departure even when it does not threaten your berth.
A note on the crew change
I keep coming back to this because it is the single best use of Nice for a visiting boat. Almost nowhere else on the French Mediterranean lets you tie up within reach of an international airport with this many connections. The tramway runs from near the port out to the terminal, the journey is quick and cheap, and it turns Nice into the obvious place to drop tired crew and pick up fresh ones halfway through a long cruise. I have ended one charter and started the next from the same berth, with the changeover handled in an afternoon. Build that into your route planning: if you need to swap people during a Mediterranean season, do it in Nice and save yourself the logistical headache of the smaller harbours.
The verdict
Port Lympia is not a relaxing yacht marina and it does not pretend to be. It is a working harbour where you tie up next to ferries and fuel barges and put up with the noise and the wakes because, in return, you get to step off your boat into Nice. For a crew that wants a city stop, a crew change, or a serious restock before heading for Corsica, there is nowhere better placed on the coast.
Respect the ferries, book ahead, and treat the entrance with the caution it demands, and Port Lympia rewards you with the best urban landfall on the French Mediterranean.
