Antibes (Ahn-teeb) 5/8/03
Antibes is just down the coast (west) from Nice. It took about 20 minutes on a local train going down to get there. The station is a five minute walk from the center of old town, or Fort Carré which is north/east of town. One of the major features of Antibes is the port Vauban, which claims to be the largest on the Mediterranean. Certainly a lot of boats in a big marina, deep enough to take cruise ships. Anyway... a few hours here were enough for me, though I did not come prepared to hit the nice beaches on the south.
Click on the pictures for a larger version.
| The Antibes train station (Gare)... it looks new, but the ticket office was out back in a trailor??? |  |
| Port Vauban, notice the fort above... |  |
| Fort Carré | |
| I did the fort tour first as it is easier to plop down in town... the fort has four points, pointed at the towns historical enemies of Nice, Corsica, and I can't remember... anyway, the fort was never attacked, surrendered three times, and is not particularly interesting, but has nice views. The little "lip" between the two sections of the wall was to keep rats out. |  |
| This is the only entrance to the fort. The tour was supposed to be in French, but since I was the only one there, the guide did it in English. |  |
| The inner courtyard was round... regulars below in bunk rooms, officers above in private rooms. |  |
| Another weird feature of the design was that they put the powder room (not in this picture) in an outer wall... the guide said it was so they could gaurd it better??? I think it was lucky they were never attacked. |  |
| Looking northeast towards Nice. |  |
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| Old Town | |
| Antibes is known for it's market, and antiques market. |  |
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| This is along the Prom de Amiral de Grasse which hugs the shore. The building in the foreground is the Picasso Museum which houses a couple hundred of the pieces he did while living in Antibes just after WWII. The museum also contained a lot of ceramics by Picasso. I particularly liked his bullfighting plates... good studies of form and motion. |  |
 They did not allow photography, but I scanned in a post card of his "Joie de vivre" below. The real this is about 4x12 ft. |
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| The Sarasen watchtower... |  |
| Eglise de l'Immaculee-Conception 17c |  |
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| Place du Sanfranier - the heart of a post war commune... |  |
| ...also the home of Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, the author if "Zorba the Greek", which was written in Antibes. On a plaque next to his door he wrote "I fear nothing, I expect nothing, I am a free man" which is what I think is on this memorial??? It could say "no parking" for all I know of Greek. (don't say it) |  |
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