22nd Driving Simulation et Virtual Reality Conference & Exhibition




In the heart of the Côte d’Azur, beautifully located at the foot of the crystalline foothills of the Southern Alps and just a few minutes from Nice-Côte d’Azur International Airport, Antibes Juan-les-Pins boasts one of the largest coastal areas in France, with its 25 kilometres of coastline.

A modern and enterprising city, as evidenced by Sophia-Antipolis and its avant-garde technological hubs, endowed with a prestigious past, it has remained a city to live in for everyone and everybody: a city of the future and of a particularly dynamic present.

The history of Antibes Juan-les-Pins dates back several millennia. Ligurians, Ionians, Phoenicians and Etruscans all knew this exceptional site, before the Greeks created a trading post there in the fifth century BC that they named Antipolis.

Showered with privileges by the Romans, Antibes, a pontifical and royal city and the last French stronghold before the County of Nice and Italy, occupies a highly strategic position. Louis XIV entrusted the city’s development to Vauban, who drew up plans for the new ramparts and made some improvements to the Fort-Carré, originally built by Henry II.

The 20th century would see the city undergo exceptional expansion, after the attachment of the County of Nice to France, the creation of the Alpes-Maritimes department and the demolition of part of the old ramparts, which prevented the city from evolving.

Revolutionary technological changes, such as the railway and the automobile, the creation of the seaside resort of Juan-les-Pins and the prodigious tourist boom of the Côte d’Azur have come together to transform ancient Antipolis into the second city of the Alpes-Maritimes, rich in its exceptional past and future.