Cannes, the famous Riviera city is a place we always wanted to visit but we are not sure what to expect. It is very close to Mougins, our center of operations and surprisingly we find parking easily downtown right next to a popular beach. Also surprisingly there are burned down trashcans nearby, what happened here is really the question we can’t answer.
Right next to our parking is the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès where the famous Cannes film festival is held. Even now it has the red carpet ready in front with people from many nations queueing to take a photo on the famous stairs.
Outside and inside there are imprints of hands of famous actors and we walk around for some time exploring and looking at the well known names before moving on.
Next we wait for the train we want to take through the city as our relatives are a bit mobility challenged. While waiting we explore the nearby downtown area it has some beautiful buildings and we really are looking forward to explore the castle hill.
You can see the “splendid” buildings all around you and we also look for restaurants to eat when we return from our train tour in a couple hours.
Finally it is time for the train to leave, we waited almost an hour for it to end its lunch break and now it is time to explore the promenade as it starts leisurely following the coastline.
The street is quite busy but not with actual cars but with parked cars, quite interesting. And quite a few of them actually but luckily the boulevard is wide enough for our train to pass. We then pass a park famous for petanque as we start returning via a different street.
The train is now taking the main street lined with many cafes and visited by some quite chic people. These is the people watching part of our tour and we do just that as we move on towards the castle hill area.
There are also many art installations and exterior frescoes throughout the city and they are interesting to find and admire as we pass the observation wheel and climb up the castle hill.
At the top is a historic church, Notre-Dame d’Espérance, and because the train has a 10 minute break we can get out an explore the interior also which is quite stoic really.
After enjoying the view for a while we catch the train back towards the parking lot and we notice why no other car is going to the top of the hill, the roads are blocked and only the train and a few select drivers have the code to unblock them.
And now it is time to eat we find a nearby highly rated restaurant and order some seafood. The clams are interesting but quite a few of them and the fish gives us a scare even though it is still good. Satiated it is time to return to the accomodation after a day spend exploring Cannes.
