04-17 Cannes Day Trip

We went to Cannes to see where the stars walk up the red carpet during the Cannes Film Festival and to be tourists.

Cannes is up the coast from Nice and only 30 minutes away so we had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel, got our car from the parking garage, set the GPS for Cannes Film Festival, and off we went.

But first a word about our breakfast in the hotel. Normally we had about the same thing that we had in the Disneyland Resort. Pancakes were available and the syrup gave them some taste. They had an egg cooker so you could cook your eggs either soft or hard boiled. The tables were setup with linen and silverware. We sat by the window each morning and watched the French begin their working day.

And now a word about our parking situation in Nice. We parked our car in a parking garage two blocks away that was not affiliated with the hotel. It was about $13e per day. One day I found a spot on the street and miraculously my car was still there in the morning. That's probably an exaggeration but you hear stories and wonder. Oh, and it's a big deal that I found parking on the street because I don't really think there was another open spot in all of Nice. There NEVER seems to be any parking spots open on the street.

And let's throw in some information about the drivers in France. French drivers are excellent drivers. I drove for 4 days and only saw 1 car that had damage on it. I never saw an accident. There were MANY close calls though! Their cars are small and they fit down streets that are more like alleys. They obey the rules. You can't make a right turn on a right light here and I never saw anyone break that law. No one ran a red light. Motorcyclists and scooters rule! They can pass cars down the middle of a two lane road. Drivers just move over for them. When traffic is stopped they drive between the cars and get to the front of the line of cars. They go wherever they want and everyone just accepts it.

And one last tidbit about Roundabouts: We have a few of these in Washington. They have MANY of them in France. They seem to keep cars moving. In case you haven't encountered one in your area think of it this way. Where two streets intersect there is a circle and the cars all have to yield going into the circle and they can then exit at any of the four exits (even the one they just came from). I grew to love them because my GPS would say, "Enter the roundabout and exit at the 2nd exit". It even showed me a graphic of a roundabout with the line I was to take. If you DON'T know where you are going to go or where you are going to exit you look like an idiot holding up cars behind you or going around in circles continuously until your navigator says, "Exit NOW!" The trick is to be bold and anticipate. Turn signals seem optional but help immensely.

We had a nice sunny day in Cannes. They had this really cool fresco that they had painted on the side of a building with references to movie stars.

The beach was long and full of sand. The men would play bocce ball for hours.

After all the rain and cold weather we had in Paris it wasn't hard to get used to the sun in the French Riviera. It TOO was nice.