One day excursions from Nice with car

If you can visit all the coastal areas with public transportation, this is not the same story when you want to go inlands.
There are some companies that organizes one-day excursions that might fit with what you are looking for, otherwise you can rent a car for just one or two days and use it only for this kind of excursions.

Here are some ideas:

Villages (villages perches):

One of the must see attractions of the french riviera are the medieval towns on the country side. Most of the tourists will go to St Paul de Vence which is a very nice medieval village that can be combined with some art gallery visits. However, some more exciting and less touristic villages are also worth visiting.
I suggest to do a tour that passes through Gourdon with its scenic views and then goes through the Gorges du Loup (a canyon) where you can stop by and have a swim on the very cold waters of this river and then visit Tourrettes-sur-Loup and eventually St Paul de Vence.

Gourdon

Map of the tour

Biot and its glass blowers:

Biot is a nice medieval village with narrow streets and not very crowded, surrounding the village there are several glass blowers shops where you can see how they work the glass.

The village of Biot

Working the glass

If you come to Biot and you want to stop by a restaurant try "La pierre a four" a very good value-for-money restaurant.

You can visit all this amazing places from our apartment located in the heart of Nice, see details here