Juan-les-Pins is a town in the commune of Antibes, in the Alpes-Maritimes,
in southeastern France, on the Côte d'Azur, which is part of the Ligurian Sea.
It is famous for its annual jazz festival in July.
New Orleans is a sister city, something which for a series of years was manifested with
carnival festivities in the streets of Juan-les-Pins, with both local and New Orleans jazz bands
parading.
It is a major holiday destination, with casino, nightclubs and beaches,
which are made of fine grained sand, and are not straight, but instead are cut with small inlets.
A big contract bridge tournament is organised every year in early spring.
read full wikipedia reference about Juan les Pins, France
JUAN-LES-PINS
, less than 2km from the centre of Antibes, is another of those
overloaded Côte d'Azur names: the summer St-Moritz, the
night-time playground for the extravagantly outfitted front-page
myths who retreat at dawn, like supernatural creatures, to their
well-screened cages on Cap d'Antibes. Until this century it was
nothing more than a pine grove on the western neck of Cap d'Antibes.
A casino was built in 1908 and by the late 1920s Juan-les-Pins
had taken off as the original summer resort of the Côte
d'Azur. Revealing swimsuits, as opposed to swimming "dresses",
were reputedly first worn here in the 1930s. Now, like so much
of the Côte, it's so overcrowded and overbuilt that it's
impossible to see what all the fuss is about - or to imagine
it as a pine forest.
But its international jazz festival in
the last two weeks of July is the best in the region and takes
place in what's left of the pine forest, the Jardin de La Pinède
(known simply as La Pinède), and Square Gould above the
beach by the casino. This urban park and the 2km of sheltered
sand beach are all that Juan-les-Pins has to offer for free,
apart from the dizzying array of architectural styles along its
streets.
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