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The Ultimate Source for Lovers or Future Lovers of the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur |
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Antibes - Juan les Pins | French Riviera - Cote d'AzurAntibes - Juan les Pins is one of the most well known resorts on the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur. It is its 3rd city. So much to offer! Please read below.
Table of Contents
Introduction
 Antibes (Provençal Occitan: Antíbol in classical norm or Antibo in Mistralian norm). It is a resort town of south-eastern France, on the Mediterranean Sea in the Cote d'Azur - French Riviera. The city is located between Cannes and Nice. It is 20 km by rail southwest of Nice, and is situated on the east side of the Garoupe peninsula. It was formerly fortified, but all the ramparts (save the Fort Carré, built by Vauban, and the ramparts along the sea coast), were demolished in the 1860s. A new town then rose outside the former defences. It is one of the largest yacht marinas on the Cote d'Azur, built in the 1960s on the site of a Roman harbour. There is still a local fishing industry, much diminished from its size a century ago. It was formerly a site of perfume distilling; the surrounding country once produced an abundance of flowers. Perfume distillation is still carried out on a commercial scale in nearby Grasse.
HistoryGreek AntipolisIn prehistory, the area around the city was inhabited by the Deciates (Δεκι ῆται), a tribe of the Ligurians.  The border with the Ligurian Oxybii (Ὀξύβιοι) being to the west of Antibes and east of Fréjus. The Deciates had a town in the area, Oppidum Deciatum but this was not Antibes itself. It was in fact the ancient city of Antipolis. It was founded as a colony of Massallia (Marseilles), in the 6th century BCE, across the bay from Nikea (Nice). The name in Greek means literally "city across" or "city opposite," Anti polis, and is mentioned in the Geography of Strabo. Although no traces of the Greek port remain, wrecks of sunken ships (such as a 6th century BCE Etruscan ship) attest to the importance of this early port. Polybius relates that in 155 BCE the Ligurians attacked Massallia, Antipolis and Nikea and in consequence, Massallia appealed to the Romans for help because of a treaty between Massallia and Rome. The resulting defeat of the Deciates and Oxybii also led to greater Roman involvement in the region, culminating in the battle of Aquae Sextiae in 102 BCE and the creation of the Roman province of Narbonensis along the coast from the Alps to the Pyrenees.
Roman Civitas AntipolitanaIn 43 BCE, Antipolis lost its status as a free Masaliote city and was annexed by the Romans, becoming Civitas Antipolitana.
Administration
 Antibes is a commune of the Alpes-Maritimes département . Formerly in that of the Var. It was transferred after the Alpes-Maritimes department was formed in 1860 out of the county of Nice). It covers a number of distinct areas including:
Tourism
 The major attractions of the city are its history, climate, art, beaches and yachting. The sand beaches are all manmade; the natural beaches are gravel (shingle in English). In summer, these beaches are maintained using large tractors towing a device which scoops-up, sieves, spreads, and rakes the sand. Beaches east of Fort Carré (that is, going toward Nice) are still the original rough materials.
LiteratureExcellent writers can be found here. The town was the birthplace of Jacques Audiberti (1899-1965), author. The author Graham Greene spent the last quarter century of his life there, from 1966 to 1991. Anthony Burgess wrote a series of essays, A Homage to QWERTY, about his travels from Monaco to Antibes to interview Greene. The novelist Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 - 1957) wrote Alexas Zorbas, on which the 1964 movie Zorba the Greek was based, while living in the old town.
Music
 Interestingly, the town was the site of two well-regarded live jazz performances - the Charles Mingus album Mingus at Antibes and a live performance of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, which was later released with the original in a deluxe package. There is a major jazz festival, Jazz à Juan, held every summer in Juan-les-Pins that often attracts very famous jazz musicians from the United States, France, and around the world. The electronic music group M83 is from the town.
ArtThe Musée Picasso, located in the mediaeval Château Grimaldi, contains Pablo Picasso's works from the yearlong period he spent in the town. His name "counts" here among others... The Musée Peynet et du Dessin Humoristique has a permanent exhibition of the works of Peynet and has temporary exhibitions of graphic arts, humour, and satire. The museum is built on the site of the Roman temple to Saturn. The French-Russian abstract painter, Nicolas de Staël committed suicide in th town in 1955.
Cap d'Antibes The southern peninsula of the town is known as Cap d'Antibes. A bastion of wealth and exclusivity, it was the setting for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. The Hotel du Cap, called Hôtel des Étrangers in the novel, is still one of the most expensive and exclusive hotels in the world. The highest point on the Cap d'Antibes is occupied by Le Phare (lighthouse) de la Garoupe, constructed after retreating Nazis blew up the earlier one, and a small Roman Catholic chapel. La Chapelle de la Garoupe, containing a locally famous gilded wooden statue of Notre Dame de Bonne Port (loosely, Our Lady of Safe Homecoming), and noted for the variety of ex votive offerings (votive deposit left by sailors and their families... or sometimes their widows).
MarinelandMarineland is an animal exhibition park; it was founded in 1970 by Roland de la Poype.  First, it was a small oceanarium with a few pools and animals but now it is one of the biggest in the world and receives more than 1.200.000 visitors per year. The only French sea park featuring two cetacean species: killer whales and dolphins. In the 25th of July, 2006, the park was sold to the Spanish amusement park group Parques Reunidos for about 75 million Euros. Parques Reunidos also owns L'Oceanografic in Valencia on the Spanish mainland.
Animal Exhibits
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Juan les PinsJuan les Pins is a town in the commune of Antibes.
 It is famous for its annual Jazz Festival in July. New Orleans is a sister city, something which for a series of years was manifested with carnival festivities in the streets of Juan les Pins, with both local and New Orleans jazz bands parading. It is a major holiday destination, with casino, nightclubs and beaches, which are made of fine-grained sand, and are not straight, but instead are cut with small inlets. A big contract bridge tournament is organised every year in early spring. Situated west of the town of Antibes on the western slope of the ridge, halfway to the old fishery village of Golfe Juan (where Napoleon landed in 1815). It had been an area with lots of stone pine trees (pins in French), where the inhabitants of Antibes used to go for a promenade, for a picnic in the shadow of the stone pine trees or to collect tree branches and cones for their stoves. The village was given its name Juan les Pins on 12 March 1882. Why the Spanish spelling of Jean was chosen, is not clear. Other names had been discussed, such as Héliopolis, Antibes-les-Pins and Albany-les-Pins (after the Duke of Albany - son of Queen Victoria). The following year, 1883, it was decided to build a railroad station in Juan les Pins on the PLM (Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée) line that had been there since 1863; a turn in the history of Antibes - Juan les Pins.
Twin TownsAntibes is twinned with:
Virtual Tours
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Virtual tours courtesy of Philippe Laval for this page.
Virtual tours courtesy of VRMAG Project for this page.
Videos
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Tale of the Port of Antibes video
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Useful Links and Resources
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