Between Antibes and Saint-Tropez sits the stretch of coast the twentieth century spent a century photographing: the Lérins islands, Cannes' frontage, the Esterel's red cliffs, the roadsteads of Saint-Raphaël, and at the end of it the peninsula that made the word Riviera mean what it means. By land, in summer, it is Europe's most elegant traffic jam. By sea it is a day's run or a comfortable two-day passage with an overnight in between — and the fleet that does it properly treats the famous stops as evening material and the empty bits in between as the actual trip.
This is a planning guide from published pilot information; berth availability and pricing in season are their own discipline, and depths below are typical figures to confirm on the chart.
Antibes, and the biggest harbour on the coast
Port Vauban is one of the Mediterranean's largest marinas and the coast's most useful base — berths at scales from RIB to serious, a proper shipyard next door, and the old town inside a five-minute walk. Start here or end here; either way, the first evening is ramparts and an ice cream with the fleet behind you. East of the cape, Nice and Villefranche's roadstead make a half-day's excursion with the mountains standing over the water; Cap Ferrat's rim is the slow way past some of the most expensive real estate in Europe.
The Lérins and Cannes
The two Lérins islands off Cannes are the coast's breathing space: the monastery island with its fort and silence, and its neighbour with the anchorage-and-restaurant bustle in season — buoys and organised moorings, a swim stop that earns its popularity. Cannes itself is a quay city: the old port and Port Canto take the visitors, and the waterfront repays an evening. The croisette seen from the water at dusk is the Riviera in one image, with none of the crowds who photographed it from land.
The Esterel, red and empty
The middle third is the part the brochures under-sell: the Esterel massif dropping rust-red into deep blue water, anchorages in the creeks in settled weather, and a coastline with almost no development between Théoule and Saint-Raphaël because the mountains wouldn't allow it. This is the day's quiet centre — swim, lunch, the chart's small ink marks — before the coast reassembles itself into its famous final act.
Saint-Tropez, entered correctly
The approach past the salmon-pink ramparts remains one of the Mediterranean's arrivals, and the town — berths in the old port for the fortunate or the early, the marina extensions for everyone else, Pampelonne's beach clubs a tender run away — plays its role exactly as advertised. In August the whole machine runs at capacity; in June or September the same quay is merely busy, and the village reappears between the visitors. The honest read on the entire coast: two months of glory or four months of sanity — pick your definition.
Who should skip it
Guests wanting empty anchorages and a quiet swim: the Côte d'Azur is sociable, priced accordingly, and proud of it. But for a week that mixes famous water, real towns and one genuinely wild stretch of cliff — with restaurants that have been good since before the photographs — there is still nothing else like it, and the boat remains the only sane way to do it.