Juan-les-Pins and Antibes

Saturday morning we checked out of the airbnb and took a taxi to west Antibes, an area called Juan-les-Pins. This town is so close to where we stayed in Cannes we could have walked in 90 minutes! Although with suitcases and a hot sun overhead, we didn’t. Our hotel room wasn’t available until later in the afternoon so we grabbed our books, sunblock and sunglasses and headed to the nearby beach, where we rented 2 chairs and un (deux!) umbrella. Unlike a lot of sunbathers, we set up our space with maximum shade, even rearranging the umbrellas so we had 2, which we were grateful to the staff for ignoring. Hours, spritzes, 2 books completed and a delicious bowl of ceviche later, we headed back to the hotel.

Then on to the center of Antibes, about a half hour walk away. The old town is all pedestrian and with winding roads, the photo here doesn’t do it justice, my excuse is that we were down to one battery-challenged phone for everything at this point! There are shops and artists studios set up all through the old town. Then at the coast, a fortified wall is open to walk on top of, with great views of the beach, sea and town. On the wall and the big plaza area, there is a sculpture by Jaume Plensa, the artist who also did the fountains in Millennium Park in Chicago that show people’s faces. It’s really beautiful to walk around, and it also makes such an interesting combination of hard edges on the capital letters and the soft curves of the human body depicted. Really loved it!

After our walk, we went for an early dinner – 7pm! We’d identified an area with several restaurants and walked by them to make the final choice in person. Cote Terroir had a table and ended up being truly one of our favorite meals of all times. Everything was really amazing – we had starters of egg and mackerel. Didn’t get photos of the starters but the egg dish was a soft boiled egg in a goat cheese and corn cream, served with bread. It was a custardy, light, tangy dish. And the mackerel had slices of smoked mackerel, grapefruit, coffee foam, and licorice ice cream. Yes. Amazing.

We split the sea bass main dish (above). The vegetables to the side were atop a little pie pastry filled with black olive tapenade. Incredible!

At this point we were so on board with the chef’s vision, dessert was a sure thing. We had Le Citron, because John really loves lemons and also because they were made with Menton lemons, a local variety. First view: the meringue.

Second view: inside was lemon custard and lemon sorbet. Magnifique!

Just another shoutout to Cote Terroir – this restaurant had one server and one chef working. Maybe 4 2-top tables and 4 4-tops seated? Really amazing meal put on by these two individuals! All told, I’d love more time in Antibes – especially now that I’m reading Villa America, which is set in the Cap d’Antibes, the peninsula south of the old city. Hope to return – and if a future visit to the Cannes festival is in the cards, will definitely look into more Antibes time!