Cannes

Our second rental car stop was Cannes. Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera and where the annual Cannes Film Festival is held. We were in Cannes on Wednesday, 9/1/10. The Hertz office was about 1.5 miles from where we docked. After hoofing it down to the office (with only asking for directions once) we got our Peugeot. Hank liked this car because it set up higher than the Mini Cooper.


We headed off to Antibes as our first stop; but after arriving we decided not to stop at all. It was much more modern than we expected and even though the guidebooks speak highly of it, it wasn’t appealing to us. So we headed off to our next stop, St. Paul-de-Vence.

St. Paul-de-Vence has been inhabited since at least the 2nd century B.C. It’s built high on a hill and has a wall that encompasses the city. We located a parking spot, got our ticket for the windshield and off we went to explore. We really enjoyed this town. Rue Grande is the main street and from the Middle ages to the 18th century all of the important families of the village had their houses built on this street. The narrow little windy “streets” make you wonder about hefting your groceries home! Cars are not allowed inside the village. There is also a keep of the old fortress to see and between the neat small streets, the beautiful church and simply wandering we spent quite a bit of time here. We bought a small watercolor that depicts the village.

From here, we drove to Grasse so that we could tour one of the perfume factories. We first wandered round and round trying to find a place to park. Finally we hit a parking garage, got our ticket and eased into a tiny space to park. Even the French couple walking behind was complaining about how all of the spaces were only built for the “petite voitures.” It was actually very interesting. They had all sorts of displays with some of the perfume holders throughout the ages and then we took a tour through the factory. The tour was free, but of course the bottle of perfume I bought at the end wasn’t! Interesting to know that someone has to pass 300 tests to work in the perfume industry. Like they say, it’s all in the nose!

We got back to Cannes late. We glanced around part of the town, but again like St. Tropez it’s certainly more of a playground for the rich with huge mega yachts. So after turning in our rental car, we hoofed it back to the ship and collapsed! We were definitely tired after cramming in so many sights.