Private Tours of Cannes and the Western Riviera

Cannes is the western anchor of the French Riviera, the city with the Film Festival, the Croisette, and the palace hotels, but also Le Suquet on the hill, the Forville market, the Lérins Islands offshore, and Antibes and Saint-Paul-de-Vence within 30 minutes. A private tour that starts in Cannes does not stay only in Cannes. It uses the city as the beginning of a full western Riviera day.

Cannes Beyond the Croisette

The part of Cannes most visitors miss is Le Suquet, the original fishing quarter on the hill above the old port, with medieval lanes, the 11th-century Tour du Suquet at the top, and a view that takes in the bay, the islands, and the Esterel mountains to the southwest. The Forville covered market runs every morning except Monday and is where the city’s restaurants buy their produce. Your guide knows both.

The Lérins Islands are 15 minutes from the old port by boat. Île Sainte-Marguerite is where the Man in the Iron Mask was held. Île Saint-Honorat has been home to a Cistercian monastery since the 5th century. Both islands are worth the crossing if you have the afternoon.

Antibes and Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Antibes is 30 minutes east of Cannes along the coast, a fortified old town on the sea with Vauban ramparts, a Picasso museum in the château where he worked in 1946, and a daily market at the Cours Masséna. Saint-Paul-de-Vence is 20 minutes inland from Nice, a medieval village on a hilltop and, just outside its walls, the Fondation Maeght, one of the finest collections of modern art in Europe. A western Riviera day combines two or three of these naturally.

The Film Festival and Beyond

If you are visiting during the Cannes Film Festival in May, the atmosphere in the city is worth experiencing, the Palais, the red carpet, the yachts in the harbour doubling overnight. If you are visiting at any other time, the city is calmer and the coast around it is at its best. Either way, a full day on the western Riviera gives you far more than Cannes alone.

Design Your Western Riviera Day

Tell us your dates, group size, and what you most want to see, Cannes, Antibes, the islands, the villages inland, or a combination, and we will design a full-day private tour built around it. Every tour is tailored to your group. Nothing is off the shelf.