Walking with the Stars in Cannes!

So finally the last installment of my April trip around Europe: Cannes! Cannes is located in the south of France on the French Riviera. It is known mostly for its annual Cannes Film Festival (this year featuring The Great Gatsby, no big deal). However, it was also one of the locations where F. Scott Fitzgerald visited. This was the primary reason I chose Cannes: I wanted to be able to see some of the places where my favorite ex-pat wrote his famous novels.

After another, and more pleasant, overnight train from Prague to Paris (with a layover in Mannheim), Grace returned to Arras and I met up with Megan to continue our journey to Cannes. I had somehow accidentally landed a first-class ticket and so I was able to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous French countryside views from a very comfy seat for five hours. We arrived around 6 p.m., found our hotel and then ate dinner at a restaurant literally within sight of our hotel. Completely exhausted, we stayed in all night and watched French TV and relaxed.

Our full day in Cannes began around 11 a.m., when we set out to explore the city. The forecast had called for rain all day, but luckily it didn’t rain at all during our entire stay there! The weather was cool, much cooler than in Prague.

"Are we in 1789?" - basically my favorite ad in France

Cannes is a beach city, very similar to Ocean City, if not more classy and French. The streets were kind of dirty, narrow, and winding, but the beautiful buildings, palm trees, mountains, and the Mediterranean made up for any bit of typical tourist beach shops we found.

We first visited one of several markets sprinkled throughout the city. This one happened to include antiques, art, and books, but other markets had flowers, food, and clothes too. It was really cool being able to dig around all of the crazy expensive and crazy beautiful things. One of the best parts was the boxes on boxes of old post cards that one stall offered; there were post cards from around the world and from decades ago. So cool.

One of the antique stalls

Beautiful antiques

The street then naturally led up to one of the most famous streets in Cannes – La Rue du Suquet. Breathtakingly beautiful, this street is located on a hill that features several boutiques, restaurants, and residential houses. After the climb, it hosts a museum, an old church, and amazing aerial view of the city, mountains, and sea.

After taking as many pictures of these sights as possible, Megan and I continued our journey back down the hill and into town. As the rain had still not started, we decided to lounge on the beach and enjoy our sea- and people-watching. We first climbed around on a pier-like rock structure where one man was fishing. Several of these can be seen down the beach. They showed true Little Mermaid potential, with the waves breaking over the rocks.

Little Mermaid rock

For dinner that night we ate at another restaurant close to our hotel. I decided to have a very traditional French seafood dish, mussels with French fries. They presented this dish by having to bring out a metal holder for the mussels pot, which is this heavy, Dutch-oven type of cooking ware. They set the top of the pot in the holder, thus presenting the diner with all of the freshly steamed and seasoned mussels remaining in the pot, which is placed in front of the diner. The amount of mussels they give you is overwhelming; it was truly a triumphant moment when I could see a piece of the bottom of the pot (I couldn’t finish them, in case you were wondering). Overall, it was quite delicious.

After dinner (which included dessert- crème brûlée!), Megan and I returned to the beach. This time we decided to explore the Boulevard de la Croisette, famous for being home to the Festival Palace. We again just lounged on the beach and enjoyed the sun, the French peoples, and the ocean.

Sunday was the last day of our trip, and we were able to enjoy two hours and giant macarons on the beach before having to return to Paris. I absolutely adored Cannes overall, it had a certain charm to it that only a Mediterranean town in France could have. The Mediterranean was absolutely stunning, and I was completely surprised with the proximity of the mountains to the beach. Everyone we met was super nice and helpful and understanding of our French, and so that turned out to be a success as well! Our little trip to Cannes proved to be the most relaxing part of our very busy trip, and it was definitely worth it to see and experience a new part of France.