Driving from St. Paul de Vence to Antibes
Apr 6th, 2004, 06:57 PM
#1
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Driving from St. Paul de Vence to Antibes
We will be staying at Le Hameau in St. Paul de Vence in late April. We would like to drive from the hotel to visit the Picasso Museum in Antibes. I have heard that the traffic around Antibes is terrible,
so I have a few questions:
1) Is the traffic bad approaching Antibes from St. Paul de Vence, or just from along the coast from Nice?
2) How long would it take to drive to Antibes from St. Paul de Vence?
3) Would we be better off taking the train from Nice, where we spend our first night,roundtrip to Antibes,and then picking up our car in Nice and driving to St. Paul late in the afternoon,thus avoiding driving in Antibes, but retracing our steps to Nice?
Wow....I sure am wordy. If you've stuck with me this far, I'll sure appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks so much.
so I have a few questions:
1) Is the traffic bad approaching Antibes from St. Paul de Vence, or just from along the coast from Nice?
2) How long would it take to drive to Antibes from St. Paul de Vence?
3) Would we be better off taking the train from Nice, where we spend our first night,roundtrip to Antibes,and then picking up our car in Nice and driving to St. Paul late in the afternoon,thus avoiding driving in Antibes, but retracing our steps to Nice?
Wow....I sure am wordy. If you've stuck with me this far, I'll sure appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks so much.
Apr 8th, 2004, 01:20 PM
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The hard ways to drive into Antibes are from Juan-les-Pins or down from the motorway toward Nice. Unless you go early--between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m--you hit the traffic snarls. But the Picasso museum opens at 10:00 and it's nice to go to Antibes early, have breakfast, visit the market, and then go to the museum.
The alternative route is take the autoroute as far as St.-Laurent-du-Var (which has a nice little port) and then had back toward Antibes. The drive along the Mediterranean is beautiful, and the traffic is usually much less bad than the other 2 routes. If you take that road you will end up very near the Antibes port and the hugh parking lot across the way.
You do need to arrive in Antibes fairly early in the morning because of the difficulty in finding parking. Our method is to first drive along the ramparts and pray for a parking spot, but we usually end up by the port. That's only a few blocks from the Picasso Museum, BTW.
I do hope you like Le Hameau--it's our favorite in the region.
FYI, there's a nice little tea room in St.-Paul that serves until around 7:00 in the evening: good omelettes, salads, soups, full meals...and a toilette that has to be seen to be believed. Very high tech!
Have a lovely time--I'm sure you will.
The alternative route is take the autoroute as far as St.-Laurent-du-Var (which has a nice little port) and then had back toward Antibes. The drive along the Mediterranean is beautiful, and the traffic is usually much less bad than the other 2 routes. If you take that road you will end up very near the Antibes port and the hugh parking lot across the way.
You do need to arrive in Antibes fairly early in the morning because of the difficulty in finding parking. Our method is to first drive along the ramparts and pray for a parking spot, but we usually end up by the port. That's only a few blocks from the Picasso Museum, BTW.
I do hope you like Le Hameau--it's our favorite in the region.
FYI, there's a nice little tea room in St.-Paul that serves until around 7:00 in the evening: good omelettes, salads, soups, full meals...and a toilette that has to be seen to be believed. Very high tech!
Have a lovely time--I'm sure you will.
Apr 8th, 2004, 03:34 PM
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marthag, we stayed at Le Hameau two years ago and drove to Antibes. I do not remember it being a problem. There was a large parking area on the left hand side of the road, we parked, walked into town and it was not far to the Picasso Museum. We were there so my husband could go to Monaco for the Grand Prix, so I must assume it was busy time, trafficwise. I can't recall how long it took, but I can tell you if it was difficult, I would have remembered that!
Apr 8th, 2004, 07:29 PM
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Thank you all for the very helpful information. I think I'll follow your suggestion about an early dinner at the tearoom in St. Paul. Still undecided about driving or training it to Antibes.I'm pretty intimidated by traffic. Oh, decisions/decisions.
Apr 8th, 2004, 09:15 PM
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Don't be intimidated by the traffic. It's not nasty. It's just slow. If you go early, you won't have a problem. Park in the port area of Antibes and walk up to the Picasso Museum.
The French don't get road rage. If it's slow, it's slow but no one gets upset. It's much more pleasant than an American traffic snarl, especially in LA.
The French don't get road rage. If it's slow, it's slow but no one gets upset. It's much more pleasant than an American traffic snarl, especially in LA.
