What to Do in June in and around Nice – 2025

Nice ChateauFete du Chateau Weekend  FREE – Usually the last weekend in June. This is the only weekend of the year when you can go up to the Nice Chateau at night, for a fun music festival put on by… the Communist Party!    Tram stop Cathedrale or Garibaldi          

Fete de Saint-Pierre (patron saint of fishermen) Port Festival – free –  Late June, 2025 dates TBD.   Starting with a colorful procession around the port at 8pm, the soiree continues with a giant sardinade, a big family-style sardine barbeque (not free) accompanied by other Nice specialties, followed by a fun folkloric outdoor dance party starting at 10:15pm.

Bellet Winery Shuttle – Every Saturday starting in June, Nice runs a special shuttle bus that does a continuous loop of Bellet wineries for the cost of a regular bus ticket!  

Afterwork concert at Villa Massena – June 12, 2025 at 7pm.  Enjoy a 1-hour songfest  concert by the chorus of the Nice Opera, in an unbeatable garden setting… Cover charge is 20€ which includes a drink.  Part of the musical outreach by the Nice Opera.  

Free Symphony Mass with the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra – 11am last Sunday in June, as part of the Sacred Music Festival in the Sainte-Reperate Cathedrale in Old Nice, tram stop Cathedrale.

Festi’Vence – last weekend in June – Free – a slate of back-to-back classical music concerts spread out over 3 days in the town square of the charming town of Vence.  It’s easy to get there by bus, even coming back late. 

Stand up Comedy in English – Sundays, June 2025 dates tbd – Every other Sunday, the new Bobar Comedy Club in Old Nice does a stand-up comedy show (Spill the Tea) in English at 7:30pm and cover charge is just 8€ or 5€ students. 27 rue Benoit Bunico, tram stop Cathedrale.

Beat the heat inside a cool cinema: last weekend in June tdb, the Fete de la Cinema where all movies are just 5€ a ticket.  Here’s a guide to cinemas in Nice with films in English.

Sunday Concert in the ParkSunday Orchestra Concerts in the Park – FREE – Every Sunday at 3:30pm the Nice Orchestra d’Harmonie gives a free concert in the gazebo in the Albert 1st gardens.  To find it, just walk to the end of the Promenade du Paillon, where the gardens meet the seaside, and it is in the far right corner.  Click here for this week’s concert program.  Tram stop Massena

The Running of the Sheep (Transhumance) – Free – Saturday June 6 (tbd) 2025 – in the mountain village Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee.  It’s quite a site to see the shepherds guide hundreds of sheep on their yearly multi-day trek from their winter lowlands, to the highlands where they will graze for the summer.   There are activities, music, demonstrations, and workshops for kids all day long until they welcome the arriving sheep late afternoon. )r do the same the last Sunday in June (date tbd), for the herd that summers in the picturesque village of Guillaumes.  They’ll bring ’em back down in October….

European Archaeology Days – Middle weekend in June   If your French is up to it, there is a lot to discover in this archaeologically rich area.

English Book Sale – June 2025 date tbd, from 10am-3pm.  The small but overflowing English-American Library holds a semi-annual book sale to trim down their stacks.  All books are in English and just 1€!   Held in the garden of the Holy Trinity Church 11 rue de la Buffa, and from there they will show you the way to the historic hidden library in the basement of the church, where it has been delighting English-speaking expats since 1862. 

For Sporty Types

Nice Ironman European Championship  ironman

Free to watch! June 29, 2025 An ultra-endurance race of insane proportions for mega-jocks, but we mere mortals can still watch!  The 6:25am start is a 2.4 miles (3.8 km) open water swim, then they bike over mountains for 112 miles (180 km), and if that wasn’t enough, then they run – I’m not kidding – a full marathon of 26.2 miles (42 km) on the Prom.  The Promenade des Anglais is closed to traffic all day, so even couch potatoes can take advantage of the unusually silent Prom for a relaxing drink at one of the bars facing the sea.

The Cagnes Triathlon is Sunday June 29 (tbd), 2025, with 1000 competitors doing an open-water swim, biking through the hills, and finishing with a semi-marathon.  Get there by car,  Bus #620, stop Hippodrome, or by train, stop Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Music Festivals

Fete de la Musique June 21 – FREE    Every June 21st on Summer Solstice, the Fete de la Musique transforms all of France into a free music festival which not to be missed.   In the Old Town the variety of music is vast; and within this auditive free-for-all there is truly something for every musical taste, and it is kind of fun to try to find the chords through the cacophony…  This is the one night of the year when all the bars have permission to pull their speakers outside, serve on the street, and stay open until 3am… and there is literally dancing in the streets.  Or…stick to the surrounding neighborhoods:  If crowds and craziness are not your bag, know that the farther away that you get from the Vieux-Nice Fete de la Bruit epicenter, the more, well, musical, the festival becomes… delightful, cultural, and full of discovery.

Max de Bruit Rock Fest – June 2025 dates tbd – A super-fun 3-day music fest that is 100% tribute bands: Depeche Mode, Garbage, Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, Hendrix, The Who, Doors,  Genesis, and more.  Theatre de Verdure, tram stop Massena.  Tickets are 15 a night or early bird 3-day pass for 38, with the proceeds going 100% to charity

Jazz/Blues/Rock Concerts in Nice  Besides nightly concerts at local jazz clubs and rock bars, there is also a robust monthly concert schedule with Nice Music Live;  the concerts at Theatre de Verdure, Black Box, and Stockfish, all have easy tramway access.

Classical Concerts in Nice – There is a whole slate of at least 10 classical concerts every month by different Baroque and Classical ensembles performing in Nice’s fabulous Baroque Churches.

The Nice Opera has all kinds of events going on every week: Here is this month’s schedule

  • Insider Tip: The Nice Opera ticket office has a last-minute ticket line, where one hour before the performance, unsold tickets drop to half-price …and for students and under-30s tickets are just 5€! 

Catch one of the eclectic Candlelight Concerts at the Nice Observatory  A one-of-a-kind concert venue in a historic (but still operating) observatory lit only by a thousand candles… and at the end the cupola opens up to the stars.  Tickets start at 47€ and the Observatory is a bit complicated to get to, but worth it for a unique concert in a truly magical ambiance.

See Related Pages:

  • What to do on Sundays in Nicefree afternoon orchestra concerts, free museum days, special family-friendly concert matinees at the Opera House, and of course numerous Catholic masses to choose from…
  • Nice by Nite – concerts, jazz clubs, salsa and tango venues, pub quiz nights, English-language theater and movie venues…

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Photo credits: Street musician licenced under Creative Commons, Nice Ironman by Patrice Lapoirie courtesy of the Nice-Matin

 

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