A junction with three arms, and the one you take
Vinci Autoroutes, which operates this stretch, describes junction 44 Antibes Est as a structure with three arms: one towards Sophia Antipolis, one towards the town via the RD535, one towards chemin des Trois Moulins. That is not an engineer’s footnote. Depending on the arrival address you leave the motorway at a different point, and the way back does not use the same slip road either.
Twenty-two kilometres, twenty-five minutes: it is short, and that is exactly why the lost time happens at the end. A job that goes wrong here rarely goes wrong on the A8. It goes wrong on the last two hundred metres.
The streets a car does not enter, and when
The town publishes its list, and it is a long one. Permanently pedestrian: rue du Bas-Castelet, rue Vandenberg, rue Fersen, rue de la République, rue Raybaud, rue du Championnet, rue Fontvieille, boulevard d’Aguillon, rue Paul-Arène and Porte Marine.
A seasonal zone sits on top of it and flips with the calendar: 1 June to 30 September from 15:30 to 01:00, then 1 October to 30 April at the same hours, Fridays to Sundays only. It covers rue Maizière, rue de la Tourraque, cours Masséna, rue Aubernon and rue Vauban. Juan-les-Pins runs its own scheme on rue Dautheville and boulevard de la Pinède, from 19:00 to 06:00 between 14 June and 2 September.
One point deserves saying plainly: the month of May is covered by neither published period. We do not fill that gap with a guess.
A bollard opens on an intercom, not on its own
The municipal text is explicit. The driver uses the intercom, is put through to the municipal police urban surveillance centre, and access is granted only once identity has been verified. This is not plate recognition, it is a conversation with a person, and it takes the time it takes.
What is automatic is the bollard coming back up. The town warns that the risk is high for the following vehicle. Slipping in behind an authorised car is not a trick, it is a bodywork bill. Deliveries are allowed from 06:00 to 10:00, residents pass with a permit, and a guest expected in the old town is set down before the bollard. Saying so before the job beats discovering it in front of one.