Antibes

Why go

Picasso's museum in the castle where he painted — six months of work in 1946, left behind as a gift. Vauban's ramparts — the seventeenth-century sea walls, walkable, with the Alps behind the water. Port Vauban — the largest marina in the Mediterranean by tonnage, where crews outnumber owners. Cap d'Antibes — a coastal footpath around a headland of pines and villas, free and better than any beach club.

The character

Antibes is the oldest town on this coast — Greek Antipolis, founded from Marseille in the fifth century BC — and it kept working through every phase the Riviera went through. Vauban fortified it in the 1680s as France's frontier post facing Savoy across the Var, and those ramparts are still the town's edge.

Its modern character was set in 1946, when Picasso was offered rooms in the Château Grimaldi as a studio. He worked there for six months, painting on plywood and fibro-cement because canvas was unobtainable, and left everything to the town. That set the tone: Antibes has money and yachts, but it is not Cannes. The old town has a daily covered market that locals shop at, the Cap has villas hidden in pines, and Juan-les-Pins next door has the jazz festival and the nightlife, so Antibes itself does not have to. It is the most liveable town on the Côte d'Azur and the one that ages best on a second visit.

Places of character

Musée Picasso, Château Grimaldi — the terrace with Germaine Richier sculptures over the sea, and La Joie de Vivre inside. Marché Provençal — under an iron roof on Cours Masséna every morning except Monday in winter. The ramparts walk — from the château to the Bastion Saint-André, with the Alps across the bay on clear days. Sentier du Littoral, Cap d'Antibes — an hour and a half around the headland on a coastal path cut into rock. Port Vauban's Quai des Milliardaires — walk it; the scale of the boats is the point, and the crews are the economy. Juan-les-Pins in July — Jazz à Juan has run since 1960 in a pine grove by the sea.

The way to do it

Stay in the old town inside the walls. Shop the market and eat what you buy on the ramparts. Walk the Cap path in the morning before the heat. Use Antibes as the base for the coast — Nice and Cannes are both fifteen minutes by train — and keep the evenings here rather than going out to them.

One perfect day

Coffee on Cours Masséna as the market sets up, then the Picasso museum at opening with the terrace to yourself and the sea below the parapet. Buy lunch at the market — socca, tapenade, tomatoes, cheese — and eat it on the ramparts. Afternoon walking the Sentier du Littoral around the Cap: ninety minutes of pines, rock and villas, with a swim at Plage de la Garoupe. Back over the ramparts as the light drops. Aperitif at a bar on Place Nationale, dinner in a courtyard, and a walk down the Quai des Milliardaires at eleven to look at the yachts with their crews eating on deck.

Grand hotels

Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc — 1870 on the tip of the Cap; the hotel that invented the Riviera summer season in 1923 and still refuses most conventions. La Bastide du Bosquet — a 1750s bastide with five rooms, for people who find the above absurd.

When to go

Best expression: June and September — the Cap path in comfortable heat, the market at its best. Consider: mid-July for Jazz à Juan, if the festival is the reason. Avoid if possible: August, when the Cap road becomes a queue and the beaches fill by nine.

The frame

Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival the coastal train from Nice, 15 minutes · Airport NCE, 20 km · Walkability excellent within the walls · Best without a car yes