Cannes (France)

Cannes, best known for its prestigious film festival is a glamorous and exquisite town in French Riviera. It has beautiful sandy beaches along the deep blue Mediterranean and the town harbor is packed with exquisite and expensive boats and yachts. The town is small but pretty with wide promenade bordered with plum and olive trees along the beach and red tiled French-Italian Mediterranean style mansions.

The most visited place here is of course the film auditorium, just yards from the main beach. Each year it hosts one of the most prestigious world film festival and is visited by Hollywood's who's-who! The main court yard in front of the auditorium has hand impressions of renounced film stars and celebrities like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Steven Spilberg. During the film festival each year, this small place really becomes star studded. Throughout the year this is one of the most sought after travel destination for rich & famous and common people alike.

We reached Cannes by train from Nice. It is approximately a half an hour journey by train from Nice along the beautiful Mediterranean coast and the trains are very frequent. There are direct trains (both high speed TGV and normal) from Paris, too. The nearest airport is at Nice. It takes about an hour by road to reach Cannes from Nice airport. Apart from rental car services, there are bus connections from the airport, too.

From train station to the main beach and film auditorium is a mere five minutes walk. We walked past some trendy and high end fashion shops, but did not venture to go inside any; they were too expensive and anyway we had different priorities.

The beach is absolutely fabulous. The sea was deep blue, the weather was perfect and the day was sunny. The yellow sandy beach was full of tourists taking sun bath. Apart from swimmers, there were a lot of people taking parts in scuba diving, canoeing, surfing and water skiing. The famous auditorium was just round the corner and we visited it to get soaked in some reflected aura.

We walked along the promenade to the other side of the auditorium to reach the harbor. The road was lined by beautiful mansions and trendy fashion shops. There are plenty of restaurants near the harbor, all serving authentic Mediterranean and sea food. We had our lunch with goat-cheese salad, very good quality Bordeaux, grilled lobster and crème brulle.

The harbor was packed with gorgeous boats and yachts, each worth millions of dollars. We made our way to the ticket counter of the ferry service. Our destination was the island of St. Margaret, sprouting from the Mediterranean, just a few miles from Cannes. The ferry boat was nice and the short journey through the deep blue Mediterranean was amazing. You will get fantastic view from boat terraces at the front and rear of the boat.

St. Margaret is a very small island inhabited by a handful of local people running restaurants and cafes. The main attraction here is the castle of "Man with the iron mask". It is a medieval castle on top of a hill. We could feel the history and sense the mystery while walking along the narrow cobbled alleys inside the castle. There is a museum inside the castle. You can get some breath taking views from the castle terrace at the top of the hill, rising directly from the sea. The whole place is a stark contrast against the modern and fashionable Cannes at the other side of the sea.

We were staying at Nice and went back there in the evening catching the return train. Cannes is full of hotels and holiday apartments. But most of them are rather expensive, thanks to its glamorous and fashionable reputation. However, there are plenty of equally beautiful places nearby along the Mediterranean coast where you can get relatively cheaper accommodation. It is highly possible to stay in Nice, Antibe or Canges sur Mer and visit Cannes in day trip. All these places are very well connected to Cannes by road and rail.

We enjoyed our trip to Cannes and St. Margaret very much and recommend you to visit if you are visiting anywhere in the French Riviera
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