Anyone with some firsthand recommendations would be much appreciated. Probably looking between St. Tropez/Cannes/Nice area. 4 night stay kind of eliminates villas. Beach location preferable.

I have stayed at the Le Meridien in Nice, just across the street from the beach. Many $$ but it's fairly fabulous.

Le Meridien Nice

We're going to Cannes this weekend, and will be staying at a moderately priced hotel across from the beach. I'll report back.

Also, FWIW, when we were talking to people about where to visit, some people mentioned that they thought Nice is not so nice, which is why we chose Cannes. I don't know about St. Tropez.

Thanks Mike. I think we are leaning towards Cannes as well. I think the decision maker (not me or my wife) wants to book something by the end of the weekend though. Any of your restaurant type discoveries in the area would be appreciated too!

I stayed at the Sofitel in Nice and loved it. (I think there might be two Sofitels there, actually -- I stayed in the more "European" less "Hyatt-y" of the two.) There is a GREAT restaurant in Juan les Pins (or however you spell it) -- I think it is called Le Terrace, but I'll try to find the name and get back to you.

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L'Hermitage. Truley unbelievalbe.

Mountainman - what hotel did you guys end up booking? If you are not planning to drive while you are in Cannes, just as a FYI, we took a cab from the airport in Nice to downtown Cannes. It took about 30 minutes and was pretty expensive - about 70 Euros. There is a bus that will take you from the airport to the town hall in Cannes - but that costs 12.50 Euros/person. For us, we had four people, so the bus would have cost 50 Euros. It was worth the additional money for a cab because it took us right to our hotel.

Anyways, we just got back from Cannes and really enjoyed it. We were there for four days, and didn't do much else than hang out on the beach. I'm sure there are other things to see and do in the area, but hanging out by the beach was so great we just didn't want to do anything else.

We stayed at theCroisette Beach Hotel . It's somewhat small (approx. 90+ rooms) and is one block away from the beach. The main strip along the beach is La Croisette, and the major, high end hotels are located on that road. We booked late and this is the peak of the high season, so rooms in the major hotels were starting at 600+ Euros/night. The Croisette Beach Hotel was a bit like a Holiday Inn - fairly basic but nice, and was much cheaper than the hotels on the main strip. I'm guessing because we had two kids, they upgraded us to a suite, so we had a fairly large room to spread out.

The key thing about staying in one of the hotels near the strip is access to the beach. There are two small public beaches on either end of La Croisette, and everything in between are "private" beaches. The public beaches were jammed pack with people, so using the private beach was much more relaxing. On the private beach, you have to pay a daily fee to use the beach which includes use of a lounge chair, umbrella, and the facilities. The private beaches all have restaurants, and you can eat either at your lounge chair or on the deck. These are not hot dog stands - the restaurants at the beach are very nice. The food was really good and sophisticated - a bit expensive, but I was still very impressed.

Because this is the high season, all of the private beaches were fully booked, at least a day in advance. The private beaches are open to the public - in other words, you don't have to be a guest of the hotel to use the private beach, but hotel guests get a small break on the price. For example, we used the beach facilities for the Croisette Beach Hotel, and we were charged 16 Euros per day for each lounge chair (we rented two), and non-hotel guests had to pay 19 Euros. I don't know how much the other hotels charge, but I've heard some places charge more the closer you sit to the water. Our beach didn't do that, rather they seem to seat the return customers closer to the water, which I thought was a good and fair way to do it.

I can't comment on the service at the other private beach facilities, but the service at the Croisette Beach was terrific. Everyone was really friendly and the service was great. No one bothered us by trying to hustle us for food or drinks, but if we wanted any food or drinks - we only had to look in their direction and they hurried over. They were very accommodating - taking special food requests, which is fairly uncommon in France. They also went out of their way to be friendly to all the kids running around - lifting them in the air and joking with them. (Keep in mind - tip is always included in the price in France, so there is not much incentive in providing extra nice service.)

As for dinner, we just strolled around until we found a place that had some food that looked interesting. There are lots of restaurants, and most of them seem to cater to tourists. Because of the kids, we avoid high-end places and seek out places where we might be less embarassed by our kids' tantrums. Because this is the south of France, you'll find lots of places serving Provencale style food and lots of seafood. The restaurants all seem to offer a selection of local wine - the Cote d'Azur AOC, and one evening we drank a wine from the Bandol AOC. These are blends of mourvedre, grenache and other southern varietals. Although we didn't seek out anything special, I didn't taste anything I would want to drink once I left the region.

Thanks for the report Mike. We have not booked yet. We were looking at the "Majestic Barriere" hotel there. Then the subject of Corsica beaches came up and!

We are going to Alsace for a wedding and then doing a road trip with the bride and groom on their "honeymoon" to the south for a week, so they have final say. I don't understand french but he said something like "menage a quatre"?

This info might already be obvious to people who travel often, but here is a tip that I had to learn the hard way about buying Euros.

I found that the best deal is to withdraw cash from the ATM machine. The ATMs in France do not charge a fee. The only fee that is charged is by your home bank. (I use Wells Fargo, and they charged me $5.00 per transaction.) So, if you withdraw a few hundred Euros at a time, you'll get the bank exchange rate at a very small transaction fee. IMO, this is the best deal.

The ATMs here use a 4 digit PIN number, so if you have a PIN number that is other than 4 digits, you should change it before you travel.

There is an ATM in the Paris airport on the other side of the baggage claim. So, don't worry about changing money before you arrive in Paris.

Using a credit card is a good alternative; however, every US credit card will charge an exchange rate fee. I'm pretty sure all Visas and MCs charge about 3% and AMEX charges something like 2-3%. So, if you charge a lot on your trip, that 3% premium can really add up. (And if you do any returns via credit card, you will get charged the exchange rate fee in both directions - from dollars to Euros back to dollars. In other words, if you buy something overseas with your credit card and then return it, you will still be paying your credit card company a 3% fee for each transaction, for a total of 6%.)

Unfortunately, I don't know the best way to convert Euros back to US dollars, so I guess my only suggestion is to not take out too much more than you plan to spend.

We have 4 nights in Juan Les Pins here:
Belles Rives
2 nights in Burgundy, 2 nights in Paris and 6 nights in Alsace (wedding)

Where in Paris and where in Alsace? We loved our few days in Alsace.

In Paris: Les Rives de Notre Dame
In Alsace, we have some large house in Gerardmer with other wedding party couples. I think we have a side trip to Champagne planned in there as well.

You're staying about 30 KM away from Ribeauville where we stayed and toured the Trimbach winery. I highly recommend touring the wine route and visiting all the small villages along the way such as Riquewihr, Kayserberg and Ribeauville. Colmar, which is down on the Rhone valley floor about 20 minutes or so from Ribeauville, is also worthy of a visit. Have fun - I'm jealous.