It’ll be so weird, when we get home, not to be hit on in a different language every day.

Our big plan for the day was to head to Monaco…but the world didn’t seem to want to work with us today. Apparently you can’t catch a train from Nice to Monaco on a Monday…???… We knew we could catch a bus, but we hadn’t looked into when or where, so instead we rode 40 minutes in the other direction until we reached Cannes. The same Cannes famous for it’s International Film Festival every year. Upon leaving the train station we headed towards the water. It was clear as we headed towards the beach that this city was more high-end and ritzier than Nice. The coast is lined with huge, grand looking buildings painted bright colors with classy white trim. It makes for a great photo.

Right along the water we stumbled upon the Palais des Festivals. This conference & exhibition hall is a large structure built in a modern style (but a classy modern, not a weird modern) and looks a lot like a gigantic yacht. You could easily imagine celebrities spending their time in the area waiting for their movie to premiere. Walking around the building, we got a close up of some of the ginormous yachts anchored in the harbor. Sitting right next to the dock, it is easy to compare the Palais’s shape with actually gigantic boats. These ships are so big, so elegant and so expensive. Some are almost comically huge! It’s hard to believe people actually own these. We sent a good chunk of time wandering the rows, comparing the size & grandeur, reading the names and analyzing where they all come from.

We walked along the promenade while enjoying the views of the nice sand beaches and small inlet beyond. Sun bathing and swimming would be far more enjoyable here than in Nice. The beaches wouldn’t hurt your feet & would be far softer for laying out and the inlet creates a calm swimming area, much easier to manage than the waves crashing onto the beaches in Nice. There were only a couple swimmers…it was a nice morning, but not exactly hot. They were all very old and in very little swimwear…definitely an interesting sight…

Scattered throughout the area were two types of interesting displays. The first were large fake candies whose wrappers were the flags of every country you could think of. We made a game out of naming the nations and were actually quite good at it. The ones we couldn’t get were easy to identify once Justine pulled out her “Flags of the World” app…what a nerd… We got very excited when we finally came upon the best flag ever:

The second “statue” set was metal versions of cardboard cut outs. They were the kind of things you’d find at a movie theater to advertise upcoming features, but they had been permanently bolted to the street and had the faces cut out so you could pose in them. Kristin got to be one of Charlie’s Angels and Harry Potter. Justine had a theme of being a black man as she posed as Eddie Murphy with Donkey and Samuel Jackson in Star Wars.

We found a nice looking restaurant for lunch. They had a great half pizza & salad deal so we both ordered that. The house mixed greens was an exciting array of veggies that our veggie-deprived selves thoroughly enjoyed. For pizzas Justine had one with ham & mushrooms and Kristin’s featured spicy sausage, onions & peppers. Now that we are out of Italy the pizza crusts have thickened up a bit. They are still thin crust, but they are a real pizza crust (for a North American) not a pita bread.

And here ends our time in Cannes…it was lovely! Next stop: Antibes, which was on the way back to Nice (about 10 minutes east of Cannes…30 minutes west of Nice…). When we got off the train in Antibes it was no longer nice and sunny. Instead the clouds had rolled in and it was now very windy. We took a quick glance at the docked boats and then headed towards the city center. We took a break in a little cafe and enjoyed some hot chocolate & cappuccino while catching up on blog posts. Yay!

We leisurely returned to the train station and to Nice. Here we took part in a wonderful event called the late-afternoon lay-down. Kristin had a headache & Justine was tired so we did nothing but lay in our beds for over an hour. It was marvelous. When we had mustered the energy to stand we went out for supper. We only had to travel a block and a half before we came on a worthy choice of a restaurant. Kristin had penne carbonara and Justine had spaghetti with salmon & cream sauce. It was huge and yummy 🙂

Love, Luck & Late-Afternoon Lay-downs,
K&J