Antibes, France What’s that noise in the background, punctuating the cicadas’ serenade, as the beautiful people line up to take the perfect shot at the end of the giant’s tongue of gravel that extends seaward from the Hotel du Cap? Tennis balls, of course. At the hotel’s perfectly pristine courts, pros coach well-heeled guests to perfection, while their lithe-limbed and tanned progeny engage in epic duels that end in sweaty embraces. Nearby, swimmers plunge into balmy seas from rocky platforms, and Fitzgeraldian couples lounge in cabanas that, during the Cannes Film Festival, become hideouts for the Hollywood elite.
(Is that Brad Pitt emerging from the bushes?) Evenings are spent chilling on the terrace, martini in hand, listening to , art and film folk declare that the hotel is to them, simply, home. And according to a regular, the Russians who once populated the place are long gone – to , apparently. At the hotel’s restaurant, Eden-Roc, sophisticated fare is served up on an outdoor deck overhanging the ocean while, upstairs at the Champagne Lounge, German industrialists clink glasses with resounding .
Music for watching the superyachts go by. Portofino, Italy LVMH’s Bernard Arnault has a renowned talent for always finding the best. The tennis courts here, where he would play as a young child on family holidays, are truly in that league.
Fitting, then, that he should later buy the group, owners of the institution that the courts belong to, as well as La Residen.
