Best beaches

The cote d'azur is not the best pace for sandy beaches. You have to know that from Nice to Antibes all the beaches are with small stones (so called gallets in french)
There are some sandy beaches in Antibes and Cannes, and further West you have the Esterel natural parc where some nice sandy beaches exists, however the big part of the Esterel coast is rocky.

Here is a list of my favourites:

Antibes:

La gravette is a very small sandy beach close to Antibes, the beach is crowded and is not exceptional but is a good way to combine the visit of Antibes (and its super-yacht harbour) with some relax time at the beach.

Salis is a much better sandy beach that is located after Antibes (direction Cap d'antibes).

Cannes:

Near the place where the boats goes to "Iles lerins" there are few sandy beaches that will make a good combined visit of Cannes town

Esterel:

Further west from Cannes you have the best sandy beaches of the area, Theoule is the closest one but you also have the Agay bay which is very nice where you can rent kayaks, windsurfs...

Map with the sandy beaches of the area

If you want to see really nice sandy beaches you will need to drive/travel for more distance. I strongly recomend the Porqueroles Island, but is about 2hrs driving away from Nice. The boat takes about 30min to reach the Island.

You can visit all this amazing places from our apartment located in the heart of Nice, see details here