Rentals in Old Antibes — inside the ramparts, everything on foot

What it is to sleep inside the walls

Most visitors to Antibes sleep outside the old town — along the coast road, up towards Juan-les-Pins, in a residence with a car park. They come into the walls for an evening, walk the ramparts, eat somewhere on Place Nationale, and drive back. Staying inside reverses that. The old town stops being an outing and becomes the place you leave in the morning and come back to at odd hours, which is when it is at its best: at seven, when the market is being set up, and at eleven at night, when the lanes empty and the stone gives back the heat of the day.

The practical consequence is that you walk everywhere, and that the walk is short. Nothing inside the ramparts is more than a few minutes from anything else. You buy fish in the morning and cook it at lunch because carrying it home took four minutes. You go back for the swimming things you forgot. Children can be sent to the bakery. None of this is possible from a hotel on the coast road, and it is the whole reason we restored houses here rather than villas with a pool further out.

The other consequence is quieter. These are ordinary streets with people living in them — the neighbours are not guests, the shops are not a shopping street, and the season does not empty the place in October. A week inside the walls is closer to borrowing an address than to booking accommodation, and that is the part guests tell us about afterwards.

Where each house is, and what's at the end of the street

The seven houses, with the walking times measured on the real routes rather than in a straight line. They are short enough that the differences between them barely matter — which is itself the point.

• Maison Baieta — In the heart of Old Antibes — on foot, 3 min from the Provençal market, 3 min from the Picasso Museum, 7 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison Pantai — Rue de la Tourraque, Old Antibes — on foot, 2 min from the Provençal market, 3 min from the Picasso Museum, 7 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison Marina — On the Amiral de Grasse promenade — on foot, 4 min from the Provençal market, 3 min from the Picasso Museum, 8 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison Regina — In the historic triangle — on foot, 3 min from the Provençal market, 3 min from the Picasso Museum, 7 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison VistaMar — Rue du Bateau, historic triangle — on foot, 1 min from the Provençal market, 1 min from the Picasso Museum, 6 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison Soleiha — Rue du Bateau, above the old town — on foot, 1 min from the Provençal market, 1 min from the Picasso Museum, 6 min from the Gravette beach.
• Maison BenEstre — Rue du Marc, a hidden gem — on foot, 5 min from the Provençal market, 6 min from the Picasso Museum, 8 min from the Gravette beach.

Cars, stairs, and the things nobody tells you

Start with the car, because it is the one that surprises people. The streets of the old town were drawn for mules, and your driver will stop at the edge of the ramparts: the last stretch is done on foot, over cobbles, with your luggage. None of the seven houses has parking at its door, and none has a private space — the nearest public car parks are 7 to 10 minutes' walk away. If you are arriving with a lot of luggage, or with someone who cannot manage a few hundred metres of uneven stone, tell us before you book and we will arrange the arrival around it.

Then the stairs. Not one of these houses has a lift, and that is not an oversight we intend to correct — they are seventeenth-century buildings, and a lift shaft would take out the staircase that makes them what they are. The rooftop houses in particular are reached by climbing. If stairs are a real constraint rather than an inconvenience, say so and we will point you to the house that asks for the fewest.

And a few smaller things. The market starts early and is not silent. Summer evenings in the lanes are lively until late, which is charming from a rooftop and less so from a first-floor window left open. Antibes station is 11 to 18 minutes on foot, which is easy without bags and less so with them. We would rather you knew all of this now than discovered it on a Saturday in July.

Also worth reading

• Antibes old town
• The Provençal market
• Getting to Old Antibes
• Sea-view rentals in Antibes

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