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The large Super Yacht on the left is Al Raya, 110 metres, owned by the King of Bahrain. Port Vauban, Antibes.
A trip to Antibes would not be complete without any images of the magnificent boats in the harbour. The Monaco Yacht show is on at the moment so lots of activities going on including a few fly pasts of the Red Arrows.
Today was, if you'll pardon the pun, crappy. That doesn't sound like a pun? Read on!
We decided it would be pleasant to take the train to Antibes this morning and stroll around their seafront, and so we got up early, grabbed the hotel breakfast to save time and headed out to the train station. As Brendan tried to check the route on Google maps as usual, however, he noticed that his mobile data plan had been completely exhausted while we were sleeping. He should have had plenty for the rest of the trip--nearly a gigabyte--and so this annoyance (and likely bug) was unexpected and unwelcome, but we grumbled and moved on. I tried to help him buy more data on the train, but the web site kept throwing up error messages that roughly translated into helpful explanations like, "for some reason we are not able to complete your transaction".
It was shortly after our arrival in Antibes that Brendan noticed our room key had disappeared. We will likely never know for sure what happened, but our best guess is that it fell to the floor of the train while we were fiddling with his phone. We know for certain that it wasn’t in the public toilets we had just used, because we paid for them twice to double check.
We endeavoured to put these frustrations behind us so that we could enjoy the rest of our daytrip. After all, the worst we could look forward to was a fine from the hotel. The promenade was gorgeous and the weather hot with just a hint of seabreeze. The picture above is a popular view that inspired many eighteenth century impressionists. Some tourist board or other made sure that passersby learnt this, by posting plaques of these paintings regularly along the walk. We managed to slip off our shoes to wade a little along the beach, which was extremely pleasant.
I noticed that we would pass by a shop for our mobile carrier on the way back to the train station, and so we ducked in to see if they could fix Brendan’s problem. Nobody spoke English, but my French was just up to the task of explaining what we needed. Apparently, their website does not accept foreign credit cards, but they took our cash and reloaded the SIM right there. One of the staff was kind enough to compliment me on my French, in a tone that clearly meant she was pleased I was trying. Perhaps she found my performance cute.
I was riding high after that victory, but every pleasure, of course, must be bought with a little pain. The train ride home was interrupted halfway by an abandoned suitcase. With terrorist threats being what they are in France, that meant turning us off and hauling away the entire train, presumably for incineration. We were delayed by roughly an hour in the middle of nowhere, which was just long enough for a pigeon to take a dump on Brendan’s shirt.
I’m happy to say that was our last misadventure before arriving safely back in Ithaca. The concierge replaced our key, and found us a private beach to paddle about in and help us relax before supper. We splurged for cocktails. Perhaps the waters of the Mediterranean do have healing powers, because our smiles entirely grew back. We finished with dinner at L’Octopussy which, believe me, was even more fun than it sounds.
The walled Cote d'Azur French town of Antibes, with the Mediterranean sea beyond. Taken on a slightly grey day but the light down there is so much nicer than England regardless. I can see why Van Gogh made the move south.
Antibes is the largest yacht harbor in Europe. There were some seriously mega yachts moored here when we visited.
Antibes is between Cannes and Nice, and about 30 km (19 miles) west of the Côte d'Azur International Airport (NCE).