Cannes
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Turns out the hotel we booked in the little internet cafe is just outside Cannes, inland by about a mile. Still, it’s handy for the bus to town and best of all it’s free as I used the last of my Priority Club points.
After a brief mid-day siesta (something the Europeans have dead right) we walked down the hill into town.
For all the expensive yachts in the Vieux Port, Cannes is really just a seaside town – albeit an expensive one with posh shops and the like. The beaches are nice and the views inland up toward the mountains are stunning.
These mountains though had some pretty forbidding clouds brewing over them, making us glad we weren’t flying any later. We did have some rain in the evening but nothing like what fell in Siena. It did nothing to dampen the heat though.
Initially we thought to walk back to the hotel to work off dinner, but got sidetracked with a visit to the panoramc views available from the Castre. To get here we walked up narrow steep streets with restaurants on either side, all of which looked delicious. It was very steep, but the views at the top were worth it.
It was at the top we noticed the first mural, a painting of a pirate bursting out of a large house. Back at the bottom near the bus stop we saw an even better fresco, this time with lots of famous characters from film – Mickey, Minnie, R2D2, Batman and the original joker to name but a few. All were painted on the side of a building as if they were on various balconies, very effective and realistic.
Today is our full day in Cannes. We had pondered taking a boat trip into Monte Carlo but our slovenly awakening meant we missed the sailing by about an hour. Instead we took a ferry boat to Ile Sainte-Marguerite, a 15-min boat ride south of Cannes.
The Ile is home to the prison that the man in the iron mask was held captive. We’ve spent most of the day wandering the island, visiting the fort and having lunch on a rocky beach before exploring some rock pools.
I’m typing this overlooking a marina on the south of the island. It’s gorgeously warm and a sea breeze is keeping the humidity down. Soon we will venture back into town, we need to find an Internet cafe to work out what to do tomorrow – either had back to Cranfield early and beat the storms or stop somewhere like Paris and spend the weekend, returning on Sunday. We shall see.
Pictures from Cannes can now be found here!
