Nowhere Better in the World
Music and Art on the French Riviera
By Rita Cook
S
ome places just lend themselves to perfection! I probably don’t need to tell
you that the French Riviera is one of those places. Or that I am not the first one to have discovered this, but instead follow a long line of distinguished visitors to the area, including the likes of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, and the list goes on. But what is it about the French
Rivera that makes people swoon, breathe heavily and do just about anything to get there – even if they don’t own a yacht the size of my house? Well, first of all, it might have
something to do with the weather. And the weather then lends itself to a good time, which then lends itself to… Voila, a jazz festival. Not just any old jazz festival either. In case you might be
confused, I am talking about the Antibes Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival (
www.jazzajuan.fr), celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The festival will be held from July
14 through the 25th with headliners as substantial as David Sanborn, George Benson, Kyle Eastwood, Diana Krall, and Marcus Miller. This year, as in years past, the festival will also feature a few newer artists, but you can be sure they won’t be new for too long.
art and More in the Riviera to accompany your Jazz The area is known as the Cote d’Azur and there is a reason this part of France is called “The Blue Coast.” All the colors are so brilliantly inspiring that this is one of the places Picasso lived (in 1946) and created “happy” art, as I like to call it. Stop in at Picasso’s museum, formerly the Grimaldi Castle, for a chance to see up to 245 pieces of his
work. And, when he left the area six months after his arrival and after some intense creations, he left the city of Antibes 23 painting and 44 drawings. There is sunshine in Antibes
Juan-les-Pins 300 days a year, so who wouldn’t be happy (or want to leave, for that matter.) It made Monet so happy that he said of his time spent here, “What I will take back from here will be the mildness itself – white, pink, blue – all wrapped up in that magical air.” See for yourself as you tour the
city and notice the imposing citadel standing as a fortress against the background of the mighty Alps. Or ramble down the little alleyways and get lost in time – after all, there is a 3,000-year history here. Also in Antibes there’s an
Absinthe Bar near the marketplace; you don’t want to miss that, it’s a one-of-a-kind thing for sure.
Continued ADistiNctive style MAgAziNe 65
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