Tourist information -
Cannes
The film industry and all other manner of business
junketing represent CANNES 's main source of income in an ever-multiplying
calendar of festivals, conferences, tournaments and trade shows.
The spin-offs from servicing the day and night needs of the jetloads
of agents, reps, dealers, buyers and celebrities are even more profitable
than providing the strictly business facilities. Cannes may be more
than its film festival, but it's still a grotesquely overhyped urban
blight on this once exquisite coast - a contrast reinforced by the
sublime Îles de Lérins , a short boat ride offshore
and the best reason for coming here.
The old town, known as Le Suquet after the hill on which it stands,
provides a great panorama of the twelve-kilometre beach, and has,
on its summit, the remains of the fortified priory lived in by Cannes'
eleventh-century monks and the beautiful twelfth-century chapelle
Ste-Anne. These house the Musée de la Castre (daily except
Tues: April-June 10am-noon & 2-6pm; July-Sept 10am-noon &
3-7pm; Oct-March 10am-noon & 2-5pm; 10F/?1.53), which has an
extraordinary collection of musical instruments from all over the
world, along with pictures and prints of old Cannes and an ethnology
and archeology section.
You'll find non-paying beaches to the west of Le Suquet, along
the plages du Midi and just east of the Palais des Festivals. But
the sight to see is La Croisette , the long boulevard along the
seafront, with its palace hotels on one side and private beaches
on the other. It is possible to find your way down to the beach
without paying, but not easy (you can of course walk along it below
the rows of sun beds). The beaches, owned by the deluxe palais-hôtels
- the Majestic, Carlton and Noga Hilton - are where you're most
likely to spot a face familiar in celluloid or a topless hopeful,
especially during the film festival, though you'll be lucky to see
further than the sweating backs of the paparazzi. At the quays at
the end of La Croisette and the Vieux Port, you'll find millionaires
eating their meals served by white-frocked crew on their yacht decks,
feigning oblivion of landborne spectators a crumb's flick away.
As an alternative to the dubious entertainment of watching langoustines
disappear down overfed mouths, you can buy your own food in the
Forville covered market two blocks behind the Mairie, or wander
through the day's flower shipments on the allées de la Liberté,
just back from the Vieux Port.
Strolling on and off the main streets of Cannes - rue d'Antibes,
rue Meynardier and the promenade de la Croisette - is like wading
through a hundred current issues of Vogue . If you thought the people
on the beach were wearing next to nothing, now you can see where
they bought the sunglasses and swimming suits, the moisturizers
and creams, the watch, the perfume, and the collar and leash for
little Fou-Fou.
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