Thursday 27th October - Cannes, France

Happy birthday Roland!!  To get the day off to a good start, Angela made an early morning trip to the local patisserie for some naughty but nice breakfast treats.  She had bought a card in Italy but didn’t know whether it was a birthday card or not.  It could easily have said ‘well done on your exams’ but she liked the picture of the super hero dog on the front and it’s the thought that counts.

 

Birthday breakfast – another year of restraint and self-denial begins!

We caught the local bus into Cannes.  Although it’s only 16 km away, the bus goes all along the coast road and makes many stops, so it took about fifty minutes to get to Cannes.  It was the most beautiful scenic route, all the way along the Cote d’Azur, through Antibes etc. and it only cost €1.50 each, which is less than it costs to get from our house into town on the bus at home.  It was a sparkling, warm and sunny day too.  How lucky are we?

We wanted to do the tour of the Palais de Festival and walk the red carpet etc. You can only enter the Palais as part of a guided tour that takes place at 2.30 pm and tickets can only be bought at the Tourist Information office but, as is the European way, the TI office is closed from 12 to 3pm so we couldn’t get any tickets.  We contented ourselves with walking around the outside of the Palais and reading the hand prints of the stars in the pavement.  Then we took a sunny walk along the seafront on the palm tree lined Boulevard de la Croisette.

 

         

                   Birthday boy on the beach in Cannes                           Don’t I recognise that face on the left?

 

         

  The seafront at Cannes along the Boulevard de la Croisette and the famous Carlton Intercontinental Hotel

It is said that the twin cupolas on the Carlton Intercontinental Hotel were modelled on the breasts of La Belle Otero, famous courtesan and later the lead dancer in Les Folies Bergere in Paris.  If they were, she must have flashed them about a bit because we have seen several identical ones on our travels.

                   

  Angela in the park and bronze statue of an angel holding a palm branch outside the Intercontinental

 

         

                                            Cannes                                                                   A collage of handprints that we recognised

 

 

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