A320 Captain reports the nose gear fails to retract after takeoff but appears to extend normally. Flight returns to departure airport for uneventful landing.

Narrative

Normal takeoff by the First Officer. During gear retraction; the gear handle came up; and immediately the ECAM sounded with multiple messages appearing! It was obvious with all of the noise and excess drag that there was a gear malfunction; confirmed by the nose gear indicating red with the gear handle in the up position. We placed the gear handle in the down position; gear came down; but we were left with the L/G Not Uplocked ECAM. We advised ATC of our situation and proceeded to hold. We contacted Dispatch and Maintenance to advise of our condition. It appeared the L/G doors were closed. We coordinated with Tower to do a low approach and confirm gear down and locked and a controllability check. During the approach we selected full flaps and got excessive vibration. We retracted the flaps back to position 3; where the vibration ceased and the low approach confirmed 3 gear extended. We flew an uneventful flaps 3 landing with minimum sink rate on landing; as requested by Maintenance.