Port Vauban

Port Vauban is a French yachting harbor located in

Antibes Antibes (, also , ; oc, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal, Antíbol) is a coastal city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department of southeastern France, on the French Riviera, Côte d'Azur between Cannes and Nice. The town of ...

on the

French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

. Originally a natural harbor in use since before the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

, the port was fortified by Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban, later Marquis de Vauban,

King Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...

's military engineer. Port Vauban now serves as the home of the Yacht Club d'Antibes and is the largest marina (in terms of total tonnage of the boats and yachts moored there) in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. Some of the world's largest and most lavishly appointed yachts have Port Vauban as their home port, including

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n oil businessman Roman Abramovich's 86 m ''Ecstasea'' and his gift to fellow Russian businessman

Eugene Shvidler Evgeny Markovich Shvidler (russian: Евгений Маркович Швидлер; born 23 March 1964), also known as Eugene Shvidler, is a Soviet-born billionaire oil businessman. He made his fortune during the privatization of Russian indu ...

(''Le Grand Bleu''). Co-founder of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

's yacht ''

Octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttle ...

'' is a regular visitor to the harbor. In the early part of the 20th century, Port Vauban also accommodated numerous

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

s and a seaplane manufacturer. As of 2012, typical rates for a berth in Port Vauban are between €1m to €1.4m. {{coord, 43, 35, 12, N, 7, 7, 37, E, type:landmark, display=title Ports and harbours of France Buildings and structures in Antibes French Riviera