| Arriving by air, you can get different buses into town: bus #23 to the gare SNCF (€1.30); a speedy navette (taking 15min; €3.50); or a bus (every 30min, €3.50) from outside the end door of Terminal 1 to the junction of avenue Gustav V and the promenade des Anglais, or on to the gare routière – which for once is very central – close to the old town beneath the promenade du Paillon on boulevard Jean-Jaurès (tel 04.93.85.61.81). Both the bus and train stations have left-luggage counters. You'll find the main tourist office beside the gare SNCF on avenue Thiers (daily: June–Sept 8am–8pm; Oct–May 8am–7pm; tel 04.93.92.82.82, www.nicetourism.com). It's one of the most useful, helpful and generous of Côte tourist offices and has annexes at 5 promenade des Anglais (June–Sept Mon–Sat 8am–8pm, Sun 9am–7pm; Oct–May Mon–Sat 9am–7pm; tel 04.92.14.48.00), another at Nice-Ferber (May–Sept Mon–Sat 8am–8pm, Sun 9am–7pm; tel 04.93.83.32.64), further along the promenade des Anglais near the airport, and a third at Terminal 1 of the airport (daily 8am–10pm; tel 04.93.21.44.11). Any of these offices can supply you with a free Listings magazine, Côte d'Azur en Fêtes. Buses operate frequent services around the city, running until 12.15am, with four lines running until 1.10am. Fares are flat-rate and you can buy a single ticket on the bus (€1.30) or a carnet of ten tickets (€8.39). There are also one-day (€4; available on bus), five-day (€12.96) or weekly passes (€16.77), all of which can be bought at tabacs, kiosks, newsagents or from Sunbus, the transport office at 10 av Félix-Faure, where you can also pick up a free route map. Bicycles, rollerblades and motorbikes can be rented from Nicea Location Rent at 12 rue de Belgique (tel 04.93.82.42.71, [email protected]), just by the gare SNCF. Before you start hunting around for accommodation, it's well worth taking advantage of the reservation service offered by the tourist office at the train station. The area around the station teems with cheap, seedy hotels, but it's perfectly possible to find reasonably priced rooms in Vieux Nice. In summer, there's a fairly good choice of youth accommodation. Sleeping on the beach, which used to be common though always illegal, is now difficult since it's brightly illuminated the whole length of the promenade des Anglais.
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