Five-star Juan-les-Pins: pine grove, jazz and sandy beaches

From pine woods to summer resort

Antibes created Juan-les-Pins on 12 March 1882, a new quarter "bordered by fine sandy beaches and scattered with pine trees", in the tourist office's words. The name is Occitan: Joan is the local form of the French Jean. The railway station was built with the resort in the 1880s.

The real rise came after the First World War, with the arrival of the Americans. The promoter Édouard Baudoin, a member of the Alpes-Maritimes general council who had taken part in the development of Deauville, took over and renovated the casino in the mid-1920s. Frank Jay Gould, a wealthy American heir on holiday in the region, fell for the resort and decided to invest in it; with his wife Florence he also owned Villa La Vigie, a small Siena-coloured house in medieval style. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald made a villa here their summer residence in the 1920s.

Some houses predate the boom. The Château de Juan-les-Pins, built around 1860, before the resort itself, later received Rudolph Valentino among its guests.

The Pinède Gould and Jazz à Juan

The Pinède Gould, the pine grove that served as the casino's park and carries the Gould name, is now the resort's main events ground. Jazz à Juan was founded there on 7 July 1960 by Jacques Souplet and Jacques Hebey. The tourist office ties its creation to Sidney Bechet, who lived in the resort for a while; the first edition included a tribute to Bechet, who had died in 1959. He had married in Antibes in 1951, and a small square in Antibes named after him holds a bust of the musician.

The festival came after those of Nice (1948) and Cannes (1958) and gained an international following after it was relaunched in 1973. Between 1992 and 2000 the organisers collected the handprints of visiting performers, Ray Charles, Sonny Rollins and Oscar Peterson among them; they now line Boulevard Édouard-Baudoin beside the Pinède Gould, a walk the tourist office calls the Walk of Jazz Giants.

The festival is held each July. The 2026 edition, its 65th, ran from 9 to 19 July in the Pinède Gould. Since 2017 the festival has also hosted Jammin'Juan, a professional showcase for emerging jazz talent, and since 2022 it has been led by three artistic directors, Jean-Noël Ginibre, Reno Di Matteo and Pascal Pilorget. In July and August the resort also holds a night market every evening.

Juan-les-Pins hotels: Hôtel Juana on La Pinède

Hôtel Juana was built in 1931 for its founder, Alexandre Barache, by the architect Georges Dikansky, and the hotel describes its style as Art Deco reinvented with a modern eye. Its address is La Pinède, 19 Avenue Gallice, and the hotel describes its setting as both Juan-les-Pins and the Cap d'Antibes. According to its own history, it has welcomed musicians from Jazz à Juan since the 1960s, among them Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Ray Charles. Earlier guests, the hotel says, included the Aga Khan III, Edward VIII and Winston Churchill; from 1984 its restaurant made its name for fine dining under Alain Ducasse, and in 2006 the hotel joined its present group. It was classified five-star on 5 June 2025 and has 40 registered rooms.

Classique rooms, on the first to fifth floors with a city view, have a shower and a separate bath, air conditioning, a minibar, Asprey toiletries and 24-hour room service. The larger categories suit families, from the Familiale for three to the Pavillon famille for four.

On site there are a swimming pool, a gym and a sauna, two salons for meetings and professional events, and access for guests with reduced mobility. Paseo, the hotel's restaurant, serves Provençal cuisine with plates to share and is open to non-residents. Anyone weighing Juan-les-Pins hotels against addresses elsewhere on the coast can use our guide on how to compare five-star hotels before booking.

A Juan-les-Pins beach guide: public sand and beach clubs

According to the tourist office, the public beaches of Juan-les-Pins run from the town centre to the exit towards Golfe-Juan, and many of the commune's beaches have lifeguards, first aid and showers. The city's beach map names the Grande Plage de Juan-les-Pins, Plage Pinède, Plage Hollywood, Ponton Courbet and Plage de la Gallice among the resort's beaches.

The Grande Plage is the resort's main beach. Ponton Courbet is a narrower strip of sand backed by the Promenade du Soleil, the Hollywood stretch runs from Boulevard Édouard-Baudoin to the Square Frank Jay Gould, and La Gallice lies beside Port Gallice.

Port Gallice itself is where, in the tourist office's words, the Cap d'Antibes starts, a stone's throw from the Pinède Gould and facing the bay of Golfe-Juan and the Lérins Islands. The port in its present form was inaugurated in 1967; its 525 berths take pleasure craft under 43 metres, and its water is calm because it is sheltered from both east and west winds.

Between the public stretches, private beach concessions rent loungers and parasols and have their own restaurants, so a Juan-les-Pins beach day can be spent on public sand or at a club a few steps along the shore.

Reaching Juan-les-Pins by rail, air and road

Juan-les-Pins station sits on the Marseille to Ventimiglia coastal line between Golfe-Juan-Vallauris and Antibes and is served only by regional TER trains, with services from Grasse or Les Arcs-Draguignan towards Nice-Ville or Ventimiglia. Faster trains, including the TGV from Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, stop at Antibes, the next station east.

Between the Cap, the old town and Cannes

East of Port Gallice lies the Cap d'Antibes, with its coastal path, lighthouse and garden estates; the Cap page covers them in detail. To the north lies the old town of Antibes, with Port Vauban and the Picasso Museum in Château Grimaldi.

Westward, the railway runs through Golfe-Juan-Vallauris to Cannes, about 10 km from Antibes. Business travellers will find the resort's own conference centre, the Palais des Congrès, completed in 2013 to a design by Jean-Jacques Ory. For the rest of the coast, see our French Riviera page.