Juan les Pins -- nice beach town (Antibes)

Member Name: steve23

Product:	Antibes
Date:	03/05/01 (253 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great beach, close to the rest of the Riviera

Disadvantages: relatively small town

This is more a review of Juan les Pins, than Antibes, though the two towns are right next to each other.

Juan les Pins is a gorgeous little beach town. It has a nice, sandy beach, although one has to pay to gain entrance to many parts of the beach (paying customers usually get a chair and umbrella, with a waiter coming around every now and again). Sometimes, the equally gorgeous sunbathers like to lie on these giant rocks overlooking the Meditteranean, while others on the frequently topless beach like to cool off in the sky blue waters.

It is the home to many conferences--I went to one at the Hotel Ambassadeur, while staying at the nearby (and considerably cheaper) Best Western. So expect a lot of businessmen and women wandering amid the locals.

Although the area is full of foreigners, you should speak at least a little bit of French to get by. For example, I had to communicate exclusively in French to navigate the taxi driver from Nice airport.

The area itself has enough local shops, restaurants and the like to keep a beach goer comfortable. But the beauty of going to Juan les Pins is its proximity to the rest of the French Riviera. It seems kind of silly to go shopping in Juan les Pins when Nice is nearby, or to the casino when Monaco isn't too far away. A frequently running train makes navigation along the coast easy, and it's not hard to hire a car.

If you're taking a vacation in the Riviera, the Juan les Pins/Antibes area is great to stay in. The beaches are probably better there than in the bigger, more popular areas (Nice has rocky beaches, for example), yet it's close enough to Nice and Monaco that a quick train ride will get you there.

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