the peninsula, on foot and by boat
Cap Ferrat — the complete guide to the green peninsula.
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat likes to be called the most exclusive peninsula in Europe, but its two best pleasures are free: a coastal path anyone may walk, and a shoreline any boat may admire. Between them sit a Rothschild’s palace, one perfect village and the Riviera’s calmest luxury. Plan it all here.
the coastal path
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild: the pink one
Béatrice de Rothschild crowned the Cap’s ridge in 1912 with a rose-pink Venetian palazzo and nine themed gardens — Spanish, Japanese, Florentine, a main garden shaped like a ship’s deck with musical fountains playing every twenty minutes. It is the Cap’s essential ticket, ninety unhurried minutes, and its terraces explain the entire peninsula’s appeal in one view: sea on both sides, Beaulieu’s bay one way, Villefranche’s the other.
The path, the village, the lighthouse
The Promenade Maurice Rouvier runs flat and lovely from Beaulieu to Saint-Jean village in half an hour; the wilder Tour du Cap path circles the point itself beneath the villas — pines, rock pools, and the 1837 lighthouse at the tip. Saint-Jean village keeps a real port, unhurried cafés and the sense of a place that never needed to try. Walk out, lunch in the village, and let the afternoon decide between the path back and a taxi.
shall we put a date in?
We reply within the day
Rounding it by water
Everything above doubles from a deck: the villas show the façades their walls hide, the lighthouse point becomes a swim, and the Fossettes bay waits in the crook for lunch. Our Cap Ferrat charter day threads the whole peninsula at idle — the guide’s walking chapters and the boat’s chapters are the same places, seen from their two best angles.
The short answers
Beaulieu to Saint-Jean: an easy 30 minutes. The full Tour du Cap loop around the point: about two hours with swim-stop temptations throughout. Flat shoes suffice; morning light is best on the eastern legs.
Different follies: Kérylos is a scholarly time machine, Ephrussi a decorator’s triumph with the coast’s best gardens. The combined ticket exists because the honest answer is both — they were built by the same gilded world, facing each other across the bay.
further down the chart
Your next summer story begins here.
One boat, one crew, up to 10 guests, and a coast that is entirely yours for the day. Tell us how you want to spend it and the rest is ours to arrange. The day is yours and it is our pleasure to be part of it.