Villeneuve-Loubet - executive living
"Sophia Antipolis's architect-designed community"
When your flight over France turns to align with the Riviera coast, as you fly over, you will notice the highly distinctive outline of the Villeneuve Loubet development.
Designed to maximize the number of apartments with a garden in the air, it's difficult to decide if this development is just plain ugly or rather futuristically beautiful. It is essential living space for young technocrats in the business park of Sophia Antipolis - the Riviera's Silicon Valley.
The "Villeneuve" bit is connected with racing driver Jaques Villeneuve. Escoffier, inventor of the peach melba also lived here, though it is hard to find a connection. (I guess it works on the principle that everybody has to have come from somewhere)
The beach is a flat plain strip that runs along the roadside as far as Antibes, its only merit is that locals can park their car or motorhome along the beach-edge, and so be fifty feet from the drivers seat to the sea. How will such people eventually spend the energy they save I wonder?
"Marina Baie des Anges from the air"
The rolling curves of the Marina Baie des Anges are best appreciated from a distance, in this case courtesy of EasyJet.


