Antibes Juan-les-Pins has been attracting writers, poets and artists for well over a century. Its original Greek name was 'anti polis' – the city opposite – in reference to its location across the bay from Nice.
Today, it is more likely to be called a city of opposites because old Antibes was a favoured hangout and source of inspiration for creative types. They came for its stunning natural light, ancient ramparts and buildings, the tranquillity of its pine groves and beaches, and because it was also a place where one could live on modest means if one were really struggling.
The flip side of this dichotomy is that Antibes also enjoys an equally keen reputation as a summer playground for the rich and famous. Juan-les-Pins, with its exclusive beach restaurants, designer shops and high-maintenance clientele, has more in common with its glamorous neighbour Cannes, which it faces across the water, as if turning its back on the hoi polloi on the port side.
I was in Antibes on a budget weekend to check out the new
Picasso exhibition at the renovated Musée Picasso in the old town and to discover part of the city's exotic allure that had attracted so many artists and bohemians in the past.
When the artists started coming here at the beginning of the last century, Juan-les-Pins was a small fishing hamlet, perfect for setting up your easel on the beach or renting a cheap cottage as a retreat to write in. In the early days French writers George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and Jules Verne were regular visitors as were the artists Claude Monet, Raoul Dufy and Eugène Boudin.
Then came the luxury hotels and a casino attracting high-rollers such as Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald who found their own sanctuary in newly built villas owned by wealthy Americans and British expats on the Cap d'Antibes.
These days most of the pine trees have disappeared and Juan-le-Pins is the kind of place where you don’t just get burned by the sun. If you are not careful this place will seriously leach your euros – a beer and a coffee in one of the fancy terrace cafes cost me €11.40 as I sat and watched a procession of pampered pooches with their owners promenading along the seafront on a Sunday afternoon.
Even in the best of times this part of the world can be ridiculously expensive, and economically at least we are in the worst of times – so I quickly decided this was certainly not the time or place to act the playboy.
To save cash I had taken the bus from Nice airport (fare €1, the number 200 to Cannes) instead of a taxi which would have cost me at least €50 one way. Easyjet fly direct to Nice from Gatwick for as little as £33 one way.
The bus service is very reliable and roughly every half hour and will drop you in the centre of Antibes. The journey takes about about 40 minutes and also runs on Sundays.
Hotel La Jabotte is both affordable and close to the beach and within walking distance of old Antibes. Last year it was featured in
the Guardian's Top 10 European seaside hotels. [e]
Out of season you can get a room for €64 a night. Each room has been individually decorated Provençal-style and open onto an inner courtyard with orange trees where breakfast and evening cocktails are served in the summer. The hotel also displays local artists' work throughout the year.
Juan-les-Pins and Le Vieil Antibes are connected by Boulevard du President Wilson. It’s a 30-minute walk between the two areas and it is in the old town of Antibes where I find what I am looking for. On this side of the city you get the impression that people work for their money rather than have the money working for them. It’s no less affluent of course, just less pretentious.
During his stay in Antibes, Picasso worked in a studio in the chateaux Grimaldi, which had become the city's archaeological museum. It occupies a site high above the old town overlooking the Mediterranean, perfectly suited for Picasso, who drew on the city’s rich Greco-Roman past and the influence of the sea for a series of new paintings that he donated to the museum.
The city was so thrilled by his gift it renamed the chateaux
Musée Picasso. Over 23 paintings and 44 drawings can still be seen in the spot where they were originally created, along with a permanent exhibition of other works of modern art. Entrance to the museum is €6, free for U-18s. There are bilingual talks and workshops running during the summer.
Chateaux Grimaldi and the little cathedral next to it dominates the old quarter, where a maze of cobbled streets wind their way down to the harbour. Here there are no chic holiday flats overlooking the Mediterranean, but apartments clustered together within the city walls, their balconies precariously poking out to sea and framed by pastel-coloured shutters.
This quarter felt lived in; in any one of the cafes or restaurants in the market square you are as likely to find yourself sitting next to a fisherman or boat repairer, or indeed artist, as you are a tourist or member of the bourgeoisie.
The Provençal market is open every morning and is where the locals buy their fresh produce. To save money I bought lunch there – tomatoes, a fresh baguette, pate, cheese, ham and fruit – for a few euros and went to the sandy Salis Beach near my hotel. This is a public beach and used by working families. It’s clean and well maintained and has showers dotted along the shoreline.
Skim your eyes across the intense blue of the sea and in the distance, beyond Nice, you can see the white tops of the Alps. The hotel provided beach towels, and I spent a pleasant afternoon, reading, musing and writing.
JG Ballard, author of Super Cannes 2000 among other works, was a frequent visitor to these shores as were many other writers, most famously Graham Greene, who wrote several novels during the time he lived in Antibes from 1966 to 1990, including Travels with My Aunt and the Honorary Consul. Many of his books were set in Antibes itself such as Chagrin in Three Parts, in which he writes about one of his favourite haunts, Cafe Felix.
The cafe is still there today, occupying a prime spot by a gate in the old ramparts, with a view of the harbour. What makes Cafe Felix interesting is the sense that it has not changed since the afternoon Greene strolled in and ordered his last dry martini.
The interior was dark panelled and still reeked of cigarette smoke; despite its location the place was empty when I visited and the patron who, when I asked if he remembered Monsieur Greene replied with a blunt 'oui' ,watches you like a hawk from just inside the doorway. A local told me that he is reluctant to sell the premises, hardly opens it for business and has no interest in trading off Greene's name.
Greene lived in a non-de script apartment block on Avenue Pasteur in the centre of town. There is a plaque dedicated to him by the entrance to the building and that's it; gone and almost forgotten.
Around the corner from Cafe Felix is Heidi's Bookshop, one of the largest independent English language bookshops in Europe. There has always been a strong British contingent in Antibes, many of the expats work on the boats. Unfortunately its second-hand prices are not very competitive and new titles cost five or six pounds more than in the UK.
Another way to spend a pleasant couple of hours and discover more of Antibes without spending money is to follow the Painters' Trail across town. Reproductions of nine paintings have been framed and placed in the exact spot from where the artist painted the scene.
On the trail you will see work by Monet, Picasso and
Raymond Peynet, a famous French illustrator who lived in Antibes and like Picasso has a museum named after him. For the princely sum of €3 it is well worth a visit if only to get another perspective on this culturally rich and beautiful maritime city.
No trip to Antibes is complete without a visit to its unique absinthe bar, the Balade en Provence, which also doubles as a 'museum', although 'shrine to the green fairy' is perhaps a better description.
The purveyor of this long-forbidden drink that has inspired artists to seek a new perspective for their work is Frederic Rosenfelder, who runs the bar, cum, museum, cum shop with his son Daniel. Access to the absinthe bar is either through the shop or a side door in the city's original Roman walls. As well as a fine collection of water fountains and other absinthe memorabilia, the Rosenfelders have an eclectic mix of hats that drinkers can try on while taking the wicked water.
Frederic is a goldmine of information on the history of the drink and its customs.
Absinthe was prohibited in France in 1915 but was legalised in 2000 and is now enjoying a renaissance. He revells in the pleasure it brings his customers and encouraged me to sample the libertine at 76% proof, but there were more hardcore absinthe on its well-stocked shelves.
Dinner was the classic moules frites and a couple of beers for a reasonable €15 in a cafe by the market square.
The Provence night sky twinkled above the illuminated medieval buildings and evoked images of a Van Gogh painting. Old Antibes wears its jewels with style and dignity and this sophistication is captured in the joie de vivre of its nightlife.
The bars, cafes and restaurants are just as likely to be frequented with locals as tourists. Although the scene is lively there is a certain decorum that everyone adheres to and one that you just don't find in English seaside towns.
After lamenting the weakness of sterling in Antibes' bars, the following morning I set off for a walk around the Cap d'Antibes to clear my head and fill my lungs with a blast of sea air. When Monet came to paint here he wrote: “It's so beautiful here, so clear, so bright! You swim in the blue air it's terrifying.”
For one euro the bus will take you to the beach at Plage De La Garoupe, where the coastal path starts or you can walk along the Boulevard de Bacon and stop and admire the view that so enraptured Monet – and see the painting he made of it.
I was heading to the famous
Hotel Eden Roc, where F Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda and Hemingway used to whoop it up in the 1920s and where suites cost €900 a night.
The coastal path is a gentle climb through wild jasmine bushes along a steep rock face. There is a safety barrier for most of the walk and the views of Antibes' marine and mineral world under the early summer sun are both resplendent and invigorating. After walking for 50 minutes I had reached the tip, the coastal path carries on all the way around to Juan-les-Pins, but I had a flight to catch.
The private fragrant pine grove of Hotel Eden Roc and the path down to the beach that Fitzgerald wrote about in Tender is the Night would have to wait for another day, as would the heated sea water swimming pool and the chauffeur driven Mercedes S Class to whisk me to Nice airport.
I was going back to get the bus and as I walked through the the middle of the Cap d' Antibes, along Boulevard John Fitzgerald Kennedy and its magnificent mansions and villas, I too felt spoilt because Antibes is that kind of place; it gives and it takes.
I was envious not of the rich and their villas and fancy hotels but of the artists and writers that came here and found inspiration for their work and also the ordinary folk that make their living here.
There is a plaque in Place du Saffrainer inside the old town that reads: “I fear nothing, I want nothing, I am free”. The words come from Nikos Kazantakis, author of Zorba The Greek and the The Last Temptation of Christ. He also lived nearby.
