PHARE DE LA GAROUPE
Cap d'Antibes
Juan-les-Pins, France
Le Phare de la Garoupe was the first French lighthouse I visited. Easy to find by following the signs to Cap d'Antibes. A real tower, this one had a nice 'air' about it. Tranquil in a way. I guess maybe the chapel had something to do with it though. There is plenty of visitor parking up at the lighthouse and excellent views of the Antibes harbor and on up to Nice as well as out the west side of the cape towards Cannes. They even have those binocular things on stands for quarters or whatever they charge in francs.
People always notice the camera equipment I use and some lady started talking to me in French about them and the pictures I was taking. Best I could figure is that she understood what I was photographing and why( por ma mere) and that she and her husband, they seemed retired, lived in a villa down in Antibes. Like who didn't over there. All those places looked like villas to me. Nobody seemed to be poor. No slums. Anyways, she wanted to ask and I wanted to answer but we had no common language. I encountered this more in France than I did in Sweden or Netherlands. Those folks could all speak several languages.
I speculate from the door that this phare was built in 1948. It was not open to the public at the time I was there and I could not read the signs to determine if it ever is. Definitely worth seeing.
Antibes has a small harbor light you could see from up at this light.
Here's how I
saw it:
CA1
CA2
CA3
CA4
OF THE MOUNTAINS
John B Caddell
Copyright 2001