Seafront promenade near the Old Town of Antibes
After having lunch at an Italian place a few streets away from the Croisette in a quiet, residential area, I tried to get a bus to Antibes from Cannes, but the bus driver didn´t stop at the bus stop when he saw my big suitcase and just waved his finger rudely at me as if to say ´not allowed´. I found out later that this was not true and that the driver should have stopped for me. Feeling annoyed, I decided to just keep walking and perhaps try again at another bus stop, or walk part of the way to Antibes.
Suddenly, I found myself on a wide concrete pedestrian path along the motorway! I was one of very few pedestrians, but felt safe as there was a concrete barrier between the path and the motorway and it was broad daylight. However, I don´t recommend this course of action to you because as you will see if you read on, you can easily get stranded on stretches of the Cote d´Azur due to lack of transport.
There were two or three joggers that passed me and my big suitcase, but other than that, it was just cars passing by and the sea on the other side, which I could see occasionally through the trees. I finally got to a roundabout where I spotted the Relais Batterie Total Energies petrol station across the road and decided to go there to get some water and try to call a taxi as clearly, there were not going to be any bus stops on this busy motorway.
Unfortunately, my phone had died again and I could not access the internet. I was very fortunate however, as the man running the petrol station was very kind and allowed me to charge my phone and laptop at his shop. He tried to call some taxi companies, but none of them had any taxis available, so he even asked his son if he might be able to help. His son was busy, so he tried another taxi number and this time, managed to book one for me. I thanked him and said, ´You know it´s extremely difficult to get a taxi around here´. He agreed that it was. I said, ´Le Sud de France est… jolie, cher, et pas de transport´(pretty, expensive, lacking transport). He looked rather worried for a second, then said with a big smile, ´Don´t worry! I am Didier, and I am here to help you!´
The taxi company had said the taxi would arrive in about 20 minutes. However, an hour later, there was still no sign of it! We called back and it turned out that the taxi I booked had been cancelled! By this time it was dark outside and there was no way I could carry on along the motorway on my own with the big suitcase and I was still quite a few miles away from Antibes. Not only that, Didier informed me, that he would be closing the petrol station´s shop in 30 minutes! Basically, I was completely stranded and it was pitch black outside. I told the lady controller at the taxi company this and luckily, she realized that it was not safe for me to be left isolated on the motorway at that time and managed to get a taxi driver who had just dropped off someone in Antibes to turn around and come back to pick me up.
Once again, I was very fortunate as the taxi driver was very kind and even helped me to the locate the keys to the apartment when we arrived in Antibes. They had been hidden in a key box with a code and the key box was attached to a pole hidden inside a bush! Talk about ridiculous. Not only that, there was no light near the bush, so he had to use his phone´s torch. Ofcourse, my own phone was of no use as the battery had drained within minutes of it being charged.
View from the apartment in Antibes, overlooking the Archeological Museum close to the ramparts and the Old Town of Antibes
The apartment was basically a spacious studio with a separate kitchen and bathroom, decorated in a kitch style with walls and cupboards painted in pink and mint green and with an odd assortment of cheap furniture and bric-a-brac, that I did not like, but was able to endure only because it overlooked the Archeological museum, had a nice seaview and was close to walk to the Old Town. I slept on the single bed, not wanting to pull out the wall bed installed in a cupboard. The next day however, I had a reddish and very itchy rash on my back from bed bug bites! And this, at a place with a high score on booking.com. You know what, you have to be so careful about those scores if they are from external reviews and/or if the property is an ´external partner´of booking.com (I strongly recommend to avoid booking any of these ever). I´ve had some pretty bad experiences with them lately, but I´ll tell you more about that another time.
´Nomade´(2019) sculpture by Jaume Piensa, a Spanish artist and sculptor
image credit: artnet.com
The next day, I had a walk around the delightful Old Town of Antibes, with its small and winding cobblestone streets, cute shops, many cafes and restaurants, and lovely squares. I bought a few postcards and magnets as souvenirs and gifts and walked all along the beautiful seafront promenade which is lined with spectacular modern art sculptures. What I liked most were the striking views of mountains in the distance against the sea and the buildings of the Old Town. Unfortunately, walking on the cobblestones while in Antibes resulted in quite a bad tendonitis that was painful and made it difficult to walk for the next two to three weeks. My ballerina flats provided little or no cushioning and flip flops are definitely not suitable. Therefore, I strongly recommend wearing trainers/sneakers or other supportive footware if you´re visiting the old town or any other towns with cobblestone streets!
Along the seafront in Antibes on my way to Juan-les-Pins
The following day, I took a walk around the vicinity of my apartment, walked a little into the Old Town and wandered into a small street where I spotted a nice co-working/internet cafe called La Fourmiliere and decided to return there the next day.
At La Fourmiliere, a co-working cafe in Old Town Antibes with great food
After two nights at the apartment, I checked out and I headed to the co-working cafe I had seen the day before to have lunch. I had a truly delicious potato and butternut squash gratin and apple tart and then began searching for a place to stay. I decided to move to a two star hotel just yards from the cafe I was at, due to its ideal location right in the center of the Old Town. It was the first ever two star hotel I had stayed in so I was slightly apprehensive, but although it was basic, it was spacious and very clean. I had gotten the last room available, a triple room on the top floor. Unfortunately, there was no elevator in the building, but the man at the reception kindly offered to carry my suitcase up to my room (and also brought it down when I checked out) without any complaint.
The only annoying thing about the hotel was the jangling of keys everytime a guest in a neighboring room was trying to get into their room. Funnily enough, the hotel is called Modern Hotel. It´s a good hotel, but I have to be honest and say that it can only be considered modern if you are wanting to relive the past. It is actually very 1980s in its layout and decor and reminded me of the boarding school that I attended long, long ago in England. The door locks and keys are old fashioned and made of heavy metal. You had to turn the key twice to get in, which many guests seemed to forget. With each turn, the metal plate with the room number engraved on it that was attached to the key, made a loud clanging noise as it banged against the wooden door.
That being said, I would still recommend this hotel for its cleanliness, convenient location, and polite staff. From the balcony of my room on the top floor, I was able to watch people walking and chatting with each other in the street below and adjoining square, and listen to the accordion player who sang a series of classic French songs including Tino Rossi´s ´Mediterranee, while wearing a beret and Breton top. It was pleasant to listen to as he did actually have quite a good voice.
Location of Juan-les-Pins
image credit: Google Maps
On my last day in Antibes, I did the 25 minute walk from Antibes to Juan-les-Pins which does involve climbing a slight hill. It was a pleasant walk as the weather was perfect. I had been to Juan-les-Pins once previously for a few hours by taking the train from Nice, many, many years ago. It was okay, but quite honestly, this time I was not too impressed. It was sunny and warm and the seaviews were great, but there was nothing much else to interest me. I came across a small fashion boutique fronted by an African woman who was dressed in the most vulgar way imaginable, several mobile phone accessory shops, a group of Arab guys whistling and calling out to me as I walked through the park near the beach, and restaurants that weren´t serving any food until 7pm (it was only about 5pm ). And so, after about an hour and a half in Juan-les-Pins, with my foot hurting quite a bit, I had had enough and headed to the bus stop to get back to Antibes.
On the way to the bus stop, I witnessed what I can only describe as child endangerment. It was actually quite shocking to witness. An Arab couple who looked to be in their mid to late thirties, who were walking with their son who looked to be about six or seven and daughter who looked to be about four or five, stopped in the square that I was walking through, as the father had seen some sort of unusual fruit with flowers attached to it, growing at the top of some quite tall trees. He wanted his son to stand on his shoulders and then reach up to grab the fruit. The son was understandably scared as he would have to stand upright with nothing to hold onto except the fruit itself and it was very high up. He started saying, ´J´arrive pas! J´ arrive pas!´(I can´t! I can´t!) The father laughed embarrassedly at what he seemed to perceive as his son´s cowardice. He wouldn´t leave it and kept encouraging his son to keep trying. By this point, the boy was crying, so the father finally let him get back down onto the ground.
However, that was not the end of it. He then picked up his little daughter and put her on his shoulders. She, perhaps due to the fact that she was no more than five years old, did not seem to appreciate the danger and simply did as her father asked. The father looked proud. However, despite the girl pulling as hard as she could, she was unable to release the fruit from the tree. By this time, a number of tourists had gathered and were watching this crazy scene. It is just a miracle that the children did not fall from this man´s shoulders, as he was only holding onto their feet while they were stood up straight with no support! Eventually, the man gave up and he and his family wandered off without the fruit. I shook my head in disbelief, wondering if I should have called the police (I really should have, but yes, you guessed it, my phone had died). I continued on, limping my way to the bus stop. Luckily, there was already a group of friendly retired English couples at the bus stop who knew which bus to take and where to get off in Antibes. The bus arrived in just a few minutes and I must say I felt relieved to get back to the Old Town.
I think the Old Town of Antibes is probably the place I liked most out of all the places I visited on the Cote d´Azur, though I really liked Mandelieu-la-Napoule too. However, Mandelieu is a quieter town and has less in the way of shops, cafes, and things to see and do. I think if I was to do it all again, I would skip Cannes and Juan-les-Pins entirely.
On my last day in Antibes, due to my foot pain which was getting progressively worse, I thought of getting a taxi to my next destination, Cagnes-sur-Mer. I asked the hotel owners if they could call the taxi company and ask them how much it would cost. They did and the answer was, ´we don´t know´. Yes, literally. So, I decided to scrap that idea and walk to the train station instead and take the train there. The owners of the hotel agreed that this was probably a better solution. Luckily, there is a big cafe directly opposite Antibes train station, where I was able to have lunch and check the train times. Unfortunately, it later turned out that the hotel I had booked is actually much closer to Cros de Cagnes train station than Cagnes-sur-Mer! There were no taxis at all at Cagnes-sur-Mer, apparently because it was a sunday, so I had to get back onto another train and go one station to Cros de Cagnes, where I was presented with lots of stairs and no elevator. I´ll tell you all about my short, but absolutely insane stay in Cros de Cagnes in my next post!
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