Nice, the logistics call.
Port Lympia — 34 yachting berths, up to 190 metres as listed by the Métropole — 26 minutes by tram from France's second-busiest airport, with the Villefranche roadstead next door. A working commercial port rather than a yachting base: that is exactly the point.
Nice does not sell itself as a yachting base — which is precisely why it belongs in an owner's logistics. Port Lympia, first excavated from 1748 under Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy and run directly by the Métropole since 1 July 2024, is the only urban port on this coast to pair a large-yacht pole with a direct tram line to France's second-busiest airport. For an owner, Nice is neither a shipyard nor a destination marina: it is where you join the vessel, rotate a crew, stage a transit.
The waters to know:
- —The pleasure basins — the Tour Rouge and Lympia basins hold 454 berths for craft under 18 metres and 34 "yachting" berths above; maximum length listed at 190 metres by the Métropole, maximum draught 7.6 metres. The tariff scheme inherited from the CCI concession sets a dedicated "superyachting" category from 65 metres upward.
- —The commercial port — Corsica Ferries serves Ajaccio, Bastia, Île-Rousse and Porto-Vecchio, with up to 5 daily departures in summer, 400,000 to 600,000 ferry passengers and around 200,000 tonnes of freight a year. That traffic has priority: movements are announced to the harbour office on VHF, with the pleasure-craft watch advertised on channel 9.
- —Môle Lunel — a haul-out area sized for small craft (7 to 15 metres, lifting capped at around twenty tonnes): no superyacht haul-out in Nice — heavy refit happens in Antibes, Monaco or La Ciotat.
- —The Villefranche roadstead — immediately east of Cap de Nice, the port's natural anchorage annex, reputedly sheltered in most wind regimes bar the south-westerly, on regulated waters whose centre is in practice reserved for cruise ships. See our Villefranche-sur-Mer page.
On a coast where every port has a defined role — see our full Côte d'Azur coverage — Nice holds the boarding gate.
Logistics first,
scenery second.
The airport at the end of the tram
Nice Côte d'Azur, France's second-busiest airport: 14.8 million passengers in 2024, 122 direct destinations across 45 countries — including 5 routes to the United States, 2 to Canada and 6 to the Gulf. Tram line 2 leaves from Quai Napoléon 1er (Port Lympia stop): terminal in 26 minutes, city centre in under 4.
A public port, rebuilt
Owned by the Métropole Nice Côte d'Azur since 2017 (NOTRe law), the port moved to direct metropolitan operation on 1 July 2024, after the amicable termination of the CCI concession originally running to 2038 — a switch made to prepare UNOC 3, hosted partly on the port in June 2025. One public counterpart, a refurbished port, below Mont Boron within the UNESCO perimeter inscribed in 2021.
Villefranche, the annex
The Darse and Santé harbours are run by the Département — a governance separate from the port of Nice. At the Darse, Chantier Naval Pasqui, an Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant since 2007, remains the local reference for wooden boatbuilding and classic yacht restoration. The roadstead completes the picture on the anchoring side.
What a Nice call involves.
Owner and crew rotations through the airport — this is the Nice advantage: a crew stepping off at Quai Napoléon 1er reaches the terminal in 26 minutes, no road shuttle. We time rotations on direct flights — United States, Canada, the Gulf — and handle seafarer employment agreements, formalities and transfers with our crew management & MLC service.
Transit call preparation — berth booking, movements announced to the harbour office on VHF, arrival and departure slots planned around priority ferry traffic, provisioning and shoreside services: a call at Lympia is prepared like a commercial port call, because that is what it is.
Anchoring and regulatory watch — off Nice and Villefranche, anchoring for vessels of 20 metres and over is governed by maritime prefect order no. 204/2020, issued to protect the Posidonia seagrass beds from the Var estuary to the Italian-Monegasque border. We prepare compliant anchoring plans in the roadstead and track a shifting local framework — the metropolitan cruise order of 9 July 2025 was suspended in summary proceedings four days later, waterway policing resting with the prefect.
Technical routing out of port — Nice offers no superyacht lift. When the vessel needs to come out of the water, we choose between Antibes, Monaco and La Ciotat, organise the delivery trip and supervise the yard period — under a full yacht management mandate.
A rotation or a call in Nice?
Crew change timed on a direct flight, a berth at Lympia, anchorage in the Villefranche roadstead: we prepare the call and its formalities end to end. Reply within 48 hours.
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