The whole of the French Riviera is spectacularly beautiful, but the small port town of Antibes is something extra special. Other towns exude a trendy, "where's-the-action? " buzz, Antibes is totally relaxed, totally comfortable with itself and in no particular hurry to do anything to attract the high rollers and big spenders who've been coming here ever since people like Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, F.Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway built villas here. Antibes is happy just being itself...the funky,laid-back epitome of the classic, red-roofed Provencal village that has attracted writers, artists and wanderers down the decades. Above all, Antibes isn't merely a summer vacation spot: it's a place you could really live in. Perhaps its essence is best summed up by the great English food writer and traveller, Elizabeth David, who wrote a half-century ago: "Provence is a country to which I am always returning, next week, next year, any day now, as soon as I can get on a train. Here in London it is an effort of will to believe in the existence of such a place. But now and again the vision of golden tiles on a round southern roof, or of some warm, stony, herb-scented hillside will rise out of my cooking pots with the smell of a piece of orange peel scenting a beef stew..." Mrs David was talking about the entire region, but she could easily have been describing Antibes itself. We spent a rainy half-day here. Come along for the ride...

said DaveMullany 11 months 14 days ago