A private website created by Steve Baseby.
All photographs are the property of Stephen Baseby. Should you wish to use the photographed images, please contact me through the Contact Link.
This website was first developed when we rented out our apartment in the old town. We've resurrected it to provide somewhere for family and friends to check out the apartment. The rest of the website provides information about Antibes and the surrounding areas. Any opinion and descriptions are drawn from our personal experiences at certain points of time. Antibes is subject to the same volatility as any other tourist town. Shops and restaurants come and go as do the staff. Service levels in retail outlets and at public sites will change over time and you should not rely on our opinions and descriptions. Where possible, we have included links to websites so that you can gain up to date information.
We have found the following websites useful:
For facts and figures Wikipedia;
For up to date information on "what's on" Réver en Bleu;
For transport from the airport and who flys there Nice Airport;
For long haul rail travel to Antibes SNCF, Trainline, Man in Seat 61.
The local tourist office can be found at Rue Fonteville in the old town. Its website at Tourist Office
Antibes was founded by the ancient Greeks and has been occupied ever since. At one time the town was a Grimaldi stronghold along with Monaco. Later it became the eastern boundary town of the French Mediterranean coast facing across the Baie des Anges to Nice which was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia until 1860. At that time the government of Napoleon III for France and the Italian government of unification of King Victor Emmanuel II and his prime minister Cavour agreed that Nice would become part of France and the border moved eastwards where it remains between Menton and Ventimiglia.
The ancient town occupied the rocky outcrop down from which the town spread inland. By 1860 the town had spread around the shallow beach which had been the ancient harbour and as far as Fort Carré which sits at the eastern side of the harbour entrance. It remained surrounded by town walls as the south eastern fortification of the old Franco Italian border. The towns' gateways (ports) were closed each night as late as the 19C. These walls were rendered useless when the border moved and were dismantled in the early years of the twentieth century to enable the town to grow and provided building materials for that growth. The original harbour has been developed into a yacht harbour to the sea side of which sits the International Yacht Club of Antibes which is used by the larger of modern billionaires' "yachts" (I use the term loosely) complete with their tenders and helicopters. The very latest billionaires' "yachts" are now so large that they have to moor outside the port and are difficult to tell from the small cruise liners which are permitted to moor offshore.
Antibes modern era of growth started in the later part of the 19C when the railway enabled waves of the American Gilded Era wealth and aristocratic Europeans, including pre-revolutionary Russians, to turn the coastline from Cannes to Menton into a playground. The town is now part of a larger commune which includes the Cap d'Antibes, Biot, Juan les Pins, and Sophia Antipolis. It sits at the north eastern end of Cap d’Antibes: Juan les Pins sits on the other side of the isthmus. Today we regard the area as a summer resort but to the early visitors, and in particular the British, it was a winter escape from smog bound, disease ridden Northern European cities. Cap d'Antibes became the richer visitors' playground. Picasso did swim off the Garoupe beach. Churchill stayed with wealthy chums during his inter war years. The British Facist leader holidayed at the Hotel Eden Roc. Coco Chanel made suntanning popular. F. Scott Fitzgerald did write novels in Juan les Pins which started its annual jazz festival, and Sidney Bechet did play music in the streets of Old Antibes, and as an American black man found social acceptance and wedded a white woman. This era of luxury and social freedom was dented by the two World Wars and the Depression but the area remains a place where the super rich and normal people relax.
The town is in easy reach of Nice airport (30 minutes from Terminal 2 by bus service 82 which arrives at the Pole d'Echange next to the railway station: timetable link is in the Useful Information section), is on the TGV rail route from Paris via Marseille (as little as 6 hours), and on the A8 motorway which connects to autoroutes northwards to Calais (1,200 kilometres). Local trains run eastwards through Nice and Monaco to Northern Italy and westwards to Cannes and beyond.
The clean light, bold natural colours made the town a favourite of artists: Picasso, Léger, Miro, Matisse, de Staal, and the Chagalls. The Grimaldi castle is now an art gallery based around a permanent collection of Picasso ceramics which he produced in the immediate post WW2 years. Nearby at Biot is the Léger Gallery. Inland at St Paul de Vence is the Fondation Maeght: a collection of the twentieth century's modern art at the foot of an ancient fortified village perchée.
Driving and Taxis: Driving to Antibes requires parking and the town has increasingly deterred car traffic over the twenty five years we have been visiting. Our apartment is within a pedestrianised area (a Zone Piétonne). Ensure you read the section on parking and vehicle access in the Useful Information section of this site. Taxis: France's taxi service is poor when compared to that of other European cities. Do not assume one can be obtained at short notice. We provide contact details for the local taxi service. Taxis from the airport use a fixed tariff, but are unlikely to be able to enter Antibes old town pedestrianised area. The same risk applies to Uber. The Useful Information section provides detail on using taxis.