Most visitors to the French Riviera follow the same circuit: Nice, Monaco, Cannes. They miss Antibes entirely. That is a mistake worth correcting.
Antibes sits between Nice and Cannes on a headland jutting into the Mediterranean. The old town is enclosed by seventeenth-century ramparts designed by Vauban, the master fortification engineer of Louis XIV. Walking those walls at sunset, with the sea on one side and the rooftops on the other, is one of the quietest pleasures on the entire coast.
In 1946, Picasso spent several months working in the Chateau Grimaldi overlooking the sea. The works he produced there form the core of the Musee Picasso, which occupies the same building. It is a small museum, but the intimacy between the work and the place where it was made gives it a power that larger institutions cannot replicate.
Every morning except Monday, the covered Marche Provencal fills with producers from across the region. Lavender honey from Haute-Provence, tapenade pressed the day before, tomatoes that actually taste of sun. Arrive before ten in the morning to see it at its best.
Attached to Antibes by a thin isthmus, Juan-les-Pins was where American jazz musicians came in summer through the 1920s and 1930s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote part of Tender is the Night here. The pine-shaded beach is gentler and less crowded than Cannes or Nice.
The Sentier du Littoral coastal path takes about two hours and passes some of the most expensive real estate in Europe. The lighthouse at the southern tip offers views toward the Alps that explain why painters kept returning generation after generation.
A private tour from Nice to Antibes takes around thirty minutes. Contact us to build your route.