A five-star stay on the Cap d'Antibes peninsula

A small, lightly built peninsula

Taken as the land south of a line from the Port du Croûton to the Port de la Salis, the Cap covers about 3.7 km². INSEE figures quoted by French Wikipedia give it about 1,450 year-round residents, a density of roughly 390 per km² and one of the lowest on the Riviera coast; the commune of Antibes as a whole had about 2,930 per km² in 2023.

The Garoupe lighthouse stands on the cape's highest point and looks over both the Golfe-Juan and the Baie des Anges. On the west coast, the Abri de l'Olivette shelters traditional local boats, while the Port de la Salis takes 245 boats of up to 7 metres. The Garoupe woods cover 9 hectares of dense, unspoiled vegetation, and the southern coast lies within a Natura 2000 site.

Since the mid-19th century the Cap has drawn wealthy owners who built large residences here, and it remains a residential peninsula. It has no old town and no railway station of its own; visitors come for the shore, the walks and the gardens.

Hotels in Cap d'Antibes: Hôtel Villa Fabulite

Hôtel Villa Fabulite stands among the residential lanes of the Cap, close to the sea and, the hotel says, minutes from the beaches and the old town of Antibes. It was classified five-star on 26 June 2025 and has 12 registered rooms; the hotel describes them as individually designed rooms and suites, all opening onto private terraces or garden views over a Mediterranean garden. The style joins Provençal character with contemporary comfort, in bright interiors, natural tones and selected materials.

Facilities are those of a private villa scaled up: a heated pool, a sauna and a hammam, a bar serving handcrafted cocktails and a personalised concierge service. Breakfast is included and served daily.

The Atout France register gives the hotel's address as 150 Traverse des Nielles, 06160 Cap d'Antibes. With the Tire-Poil path, La Garoupe and Villa Eilenroc all on the same peninsula, it suits travellers who want to spend their days on foot around the Cap rather than in town.

The Sentier de Tire-Poil, a customs path turned coastal walk

The Cap's best-known walk follows the old customs officers' path along its southern shore. After the Littoral law of 1986 it became a public right of way through what had been private estates, and since the early 2010s it has been extended to the Anse de l'Argent Faux, where it joins avenue Beaumont. French Wikipedia gives 3.2 km from La Garoupe beach to the Argent Faux cove; the tourist office describes the full circuit as a 5 km loop of about two hours.

The tourist office suggests starting from the large car park on avenue André Sella; the houses end about 200 metres further on. The path mixes paved sections with steps on steeper ground, and the tourist office calls it an easy walk as long as you wear good shoes. It is closed in bad weather, such as gales.

From the path the view reaches Nice and the Baie des Anges, and the tourist office mentions possible dolphin sightings from the belvedere. The rocks carry rock samphire (Crithmum), silver ragwort, sea lavender, an endangered species, and Anthyllis barba-jovis, an endemic species.

La Garoupe: lighthouse and sailors' chapel

The Plateau de la Garoupe carries two landmarks side by side. The lighthouse was first built in 1837, destroyed by the German army in August 1944 and rebuilt in 1948. Its tower is 29.5 metres high, its light shines from 103 metres above the sea and carries 28 nautical miles, and it has been open to visitors since 2024.

The chapel of Notre-Dame de la Garoupe has two naves, one for Notre-Dame de la Garde and one for Notre-Dame de Bon Port, whose statue holds a three-masted ship. Around 300 ex-votos line the walls, the oldest from 1506, recording shipwrecks and escapes at sea. The left-hand sanctuary has a fresco by Édouard Collin from 1948 and the right-hand one a fresco by Jacques-Henri Clergues from 1952–53. Legend holds that in antiquity the site was dedicated to Selene, goddess of the Moon.

The chapel's statue still travels. On the first Thursday of July, barefoot sailors in traditional dress carry the Madonna from La Garoupe down to Antibes cathedral, and bring her back on the following Sunday.

Two garden estates: Villa Eilenroc and Villa Thuret

Villa Eilenroc was designed by Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris and Monte Carlo opera houses, and completed in 1867 for Hugh Hope Loudon, a wealthy Dutchman. Its name is an anagram of his wife's first name, Cornélie. The gardens took shape after James Wyllie bought the villa in 1873. Hélène Beaumont bequeathed the estate to Antibes in 1982, and its 11-hectare park, with an olive grove, a rose garden and a scented garden created in 2011, is open to the public.

The Cap's other great garden began in 1857, when the botanist Gustave Thuret bought five hectares for plant acclimatisation trials. His sister-in-law, Louise Fould, handed the Villa Thuret to the State in 1877 on condition that it keep his name and be attached to a scientific institution. A research centre of the new national agricultural research institute settled there in 1946, and the estate is now run by INRAE. The 3.5-hectare botanical garden holds about 2,500 trees and shrubs from some 1,000 species and has carried the Jardin remarquable label since 2007.

Monet, the Murphys and the Cap's villas

In January 1888 Claude Monet left Paris for the south and stayed on the Cap until early May, renting a room at the Château de la Pinède, a residence for artists.

Gerald and Sara Murphy, American patrons who summered on the Cap in the 1920s, bought a villa there and named it Villa America. Their circle included Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and their long picnics at La Garoupe helped make sunbathing on the beach fashionable. Their summers here are credited with opening a new era for the Riviera as a summer destination rather than a winter one.

The villa age left landmarks of several styles, some visible from the Tire-Poil path. Château de la Garoupe dates from 1907 and Château de la Croë, once home to the Duke of Windsor, from 1927. Villa Aujourd'hui, built in 1938 by the American architect Barry Dierks, is the modernist counterpoint.

Stations, buses and the wider coast

The nearest railway stations are Antibes, where TGV and all other trains stop, and Juan-les-Pins, served by regional TER trains only. Nice Côte d'Azur Airport is about 20 km from Antibes Juan-les-Pins, and on the peninsula itself Envibus buses serve every district of the commune.

Further along the coast to the north-east, Cap Ferrat is the area's other major headland; our Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat page covers that peninsula. For the rest of the coast, see our French Riviera page, and if the French star system is new to you, our guide What makes a hotel five-star? explains how the classification works.