Antibes is forty minutes away by motorway. Its old town inside the ramparts holds the Picasso museum, housed in the Château Grimaldi where the painter worked in the autumn of 1946, and a daily Provençal market. To the south, the coastal path rounds the Cap d'Antibes in two hours.
In the autumn of 1946 Picasso, then living at Golfe-Juan, was given the empty rooms of the Château Grimaldi to work in, a fourteenth-century fortress built on the acropolis of ancient Antipolis. He painted and drew there for a few months, during a happy period, and left the town part of what he made: *La Joie de vivre*, the fauns, the goats, the nymphs, the Mediterranean he could see through the windows.
It was the first Picasso museum in the world. It occupies three floors, takes an hour to see, and its terrace above the sea, populated with sculptures by Germaine Richier and Miró, is one of the finest spots on the coast. Closed Mondays out of season.
Every morning except Monday out of season, the iron hall on the Cours Masséna houses the Provençal market: growers from the plain, florists, cheesemongers, oil producers. It is a real market, the one where people from Antibes do their shopping, not a demonstration for visitors. In the afternoon the same tables are taken over by craftspeople and antique dealers.
Around it, the old town inside its ramparts is best explored without a map: narrow lanes, small squares, stairways, and the seafront where the Saint-André bastion houses the archaeology museum.
This is the best of Cap d'Antibes, and it is free. The coastal path, known as the sentier de Tirepoil, rounds the southern tip of the Cap, between villas invisible behind their walls and rocks pounded by the sea. Two hours there and back from Garoupe beach, on a way cut into the rock, occasionally soaked by spray, with coves for swimming.
The path closes in rough weather: waves come over it. Check before setting out, and avoid the middle of the day in August, as there is no shade at all.
At the top of the Cap, the Garoupe lighthouse and the chapel beside it give a full circular view over the Baie des Anges and the Estérel.
The old town has plenty of restaurants of uneven quality. The best value is still to buy at the market and eat on La Gravette beach, in the middle of town, or at Garoupe before starting the coastal path.
This guide is part of the address book of a private estate in Puget-sur-Argens, 40 minutes away, available for weddings and family stays. It is not open to visitors.
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