girls trip to the south of france | cannes, best beaches, farmer's markets

Auto-captioned from the film, lightly cleaned. Elena's words, not edited prose.

In case you're just tuning in, this is my second video of my time exploring the French Riviera this summer with my best friend Ashley. We started our adventure off in Nice and now we're spending the second half of our time in Antibes. So I have a very sad confession to make. I accidentally deleted an entire day of clips, which is heartbreaking and the worst thing you could do as a YouTuber. So I'm going to briefly go over what that first day was like in case you want to go to Antibes and you need some recommendations.

We started off that first day visiting a local market heading to Musée Picasso, which was full of tons of incredible works donated by Pablo Picasso himself. We went on the most stunning hike at Le Sentier du Littoral, which is a stunning walk basically surrounding the Cape of Antibes, which is about an hour and a half. We ended up at Hôtel du Cap Eden Roc, which we very ignorantly didn't realize is absolutely insanely expensive and I panic bought the most expensive cocktail I've had in my entire life. But needless to say, it was an incredible first day and now let's get into day two.

Hello, hello. New morning in Antibes. We're going to I think Plage du Ponteil. We also look at Plage de la Gravette. If you saw my last video, we went to a lot of the very beautiful kind of like cliffside style beaches in Nice or near Nice. But the beaches here in Antibes that we're going to go to are more of just your classic, you know, big expansive beach. I think it's sandy instead of rocky, which will be nice as well. And yeah, go explore, walk through the town a little bit.

So, let's go. Antibes is a coastal city between Nice and Cannes on the Côte d'Azur. So, it's originally known for the local flower trade, and now, of course, for tourism, as well. So, Ashley and I are staying in an Airbnb in the Old Town area, which is composed of these cute, narrow, winding cobblestone streets, and it's filled with all these cafes and boutiques and vendors. Hello. We are currently at a beach just 15 minutes south of Antibes. Old Antibes. Yeah, yeah. We're feeling more of a low-key day. We've been on the move a lot since we arrived.

We stayed up very late last night. Having a good time dancing the night away. Yes, exactly. So. We had no choice but to uh slow it down. Yeah. And last night we went to the spot called um Um Mamo. Michelangelo. Incredible Italian. So good. Oh my god. We keep not eating French food in France. Come for me, I know. Actually, no, I've had a crap ton of pastries. Chocolat and baguette. So, I've at least had the pastries. I just haven't had like a proper French meal. It's cool to see the difference versus Nice.

I think Nice was really stunning cuz there was like really beautiful coastlines and, you know, rocky cliffs and all of that. happy we started there. Yeah, it was a really great place to start. Old Town Antibes is it's obviously a bit touristy, but it's really, really cute. We keep singing Little town. Full of little people. It's literally the energy. The coastal walk we went on yesterday was incredible. Gorgeous. Highly recommend. And we stopped for some fancy drinks. Yeah, oh my gosh. Hotel Check the menu before you go. We walked so far to get there and like embarrassed ourselves walking in on foot, whatever, and we're like, "Fine, we just have to like get a drink and like just go for it." But honestly, it was so beautiful.

It was the most expensive cocktail I've ever even seen on any menu ever. It was really something. Yeah. It was special. But it was, you know, I felt like I was paying for the view and we stayed for a long time. Trip overall has been such a pleasant surprise, and I I so lucky to have come here when we did. A little off peak season for summer traveling. We're doing it very safely and cautiously while we're here. The South of France is very expensive. Yeah. You can do it on a budget.

It's expensive for sure, but you can make it work. A lot of expensive restaurants, expensive beach clubs, but there's public beaches and you know, we've been getting groceries pretty much every day and kind of just like feeding ourselves as we go. Snacks and like light things during the day and then going out for dinner. experience it all but not go so overboard that you feel like guilty while you're Yeah. Have a very chill night and uh maybe go watch the sunset. They were beautiful. Good morning from me and Ashley. And just got our little COVID PCR tests.

Super easy to track down if you want to check to make sure you are safe {slash} if you're flying back to the States. So we're getting the tests. Just got our test here in Antibes. Super easy. We've been going to the beach quite a bit like pretty much every single day, which is obviously incredible and a big part of the reason why we're here. But I think today we're going to go shopping Old Town, Antibes. I really want to get my mom a little necklace and I love buying rings whenever I travel.

And then we're probably going to go to Cannes later to kind of get a lay of the land there cuz it's super close on the tram. Eat, have a drink, show you guys the spots. There's this cute little market going on in the middle of the square. I wish I could bring home white glasses, but not the most realistic. Here's my ring. I am gorgeous. Do you want to check it out? You guys necklace for my mom at this store. I'm not going to show it in case she sees this video before she gets the gift, but they have really cool jewelry.

L'Occitane is known for their lavenders. They have these cute little lavender sets with like soap and these little like smellable pouches. How does it smell? Really nice. It's my favorite scent. We love lavender. Having a cute little lunch at our Airbnb courtesy of the chef Ashley. We've been hitting up the grocery store like every day cuz otherwise I would just be eating pain au chocolat. Like this looks so good. We must nourish. What do we got going on in here? Arugula, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, hearts of palm, avocado. Yeah. Another little tip to save some money and make a little lunch at home.

And also you feel a little bit better. Yeah, exactly. Just like mixing things up, not eating out every single meal. We've actually been doing it for a few weeks now. We also have like rice cakes, hummus, some nectarine peaches, apple. Cute. Ching ching saute. So we're taking the tram over to Cannes to have a little evening out there. We're going to get some food, get a drink. A little tip I will say definitely make reservations before you go. We did not do that and we really struggled to find spots to eat at.

So, come prepared. Hello, hello from our last day in Antibes. We went to Cannes yesterday, which was really cool to see. It definitely was like a very bougie experience. Lots of people going to like fancy beach clubs and restaurants. We had a really beautiful meal, which was super fun and just like chatted for hours, which was lovely and like had a glass of wine. Today is our last day in Antibes. Again, I'm just kind of doing our beach vacation thing. This morning we went to the spot called Choopy, I believe, which had like a lovely easy little breakfast.

And I know you're supposed to have espresso when you're at but like I'm just such a sucker for iced coffee and they have good iced coffee there, which is nice. Today we're going to hit up a beach, it's a public beach, not like a beach club because that was getting expensive. I think we're going to Plage des Plage des Ondes, something like that. Going to have a little beach day, bringing our books, bringing our journal. Have a very wholesome, rejuvenating last day before we head back. Let's go check out the beach.

Something just don't feel right. It's our last night in Paris, you guys. This is crazy. We put on little outfits and we're about to go get dinner. Queen. Queen. I'm channeling my childhood dreams. My love. Thank you. I can't. I'm in love. Told me on the phone that you really love me.