Yes We Cannes

We didn’t plan much for Cannes because Duncan, a work colleague, lives nearby and had suggested meeting us there for lunch and a visit. I’m not sure what, exactly, we missed by eschewing the proffered excursions, but I think we probably had at least as much fun as people who had booked tours and shopping.

Cannes is a very pretty beach town, clean and bright and well maintained (as opposed to, say, Naples), but I can’t say it’s particularly photogenic. It’s not filled with ancient monuments or buildings or sculpture. In the areas where we wandered, we didn’t see a lot of interesting flowers or trees. Mostly, we were surrounded by eateries and glittery high-end shops. I can very much see, though, how easy it would be to have a life there—as long as you had the money.

The city does have some public art—both formal and graffiti—that I enjoyed.

Before Duncan met us for lunch at noon, Mark and I had some time to just wander along the beach. City employees seemed to engaged in Cannes’s yearly refreshing of the beach sand—a luxury that I expect only a resort town can afford. If you look carefully in the center of the picture below, you’ll see white square bags. There are actually hundreds of them lining portions of the beach. They’re all filled with clean sand.

I tried to find a restaurant online where I knew I would be able to eat, but it was a little challenging. Once we were in Cannes, I could easily have found a half-dozen places, but most places didn’t appear to have a web presence. Perhaps Yelp! Is not as ubiquitous here as it is in the US. The place I ended up choosing—and to which Duncan perhaps reluctantly agreed—was a hamburger place called Big Fernand. I call it a hamburger place, and it is, but it’s not an Americanized chain like, say, Johnny Rockets. It still felt pretty French.

Duncan joined us right on time and presented us (unnecessarily) with two bottles of wine from his village.

After some idle chit-chat, he helped us order our burgers and we settled at a table. We spent a lot more time talking over and after lunch, which was quite pleasant. Mark is very good at getting conversations going, and he pretty easily broke the ice with Duncan. As I usually do, I mostly listened until I felt like I had my footing and then jumped in. By the end of our three hours together, we were talking like old friends.

We hung out in Big Fernand’s for probably an hour or so and then decided to walk through the town some more. Duncan suggested going up to the fort and church at the top of a hill, so Mark and I huffed and puffed along as Duncan led us.

We talked about cars and the French, about food, our dogs, his children, moving from place to place, accents. I think we could have talked for another couple of hours, but the afternoon was getting on, and we needed to be back on the ship by 5 p.m.

Duncan, Mark, and I completed a circuit around the old town and found ourselves back on the main road to the port, which is lined with restaurants. I had discovered straciatella gelato and wanted a bite before leaving Cannes. And after all his kindness, the least I could do was treat Duncan to gelato, too. We talked a little more, reluctant to end the day, hugged, took the obligatory pictures, and said our goodbyes. He headed back to his car (after saying that the veggie burger he’d had at Big Fernand’s was so good that he’d come back just for that), and we reboarded the Epic.

Onboard, we spent some time on the balcony watching tenders ferry passengers back from the port and then return to their berths. One tender is about six feet directly below our balcony, so we got a really good view of the process. Dinner was going to be late because we had signed up for a Cirque Dreams performance (the show was called “Epicurean,” Gary, in case you want to look it up) that included dinner. We did, however, have a bit of a snack while we talked and people watched.

Standing in line awaiting the start of the show, we met a couple from Ireland—Gary and Owen—and chatted with them. The four of us sat together during dinner and the show and had a very nice time, despite the loud room, my poor hearing, and their accents.

The menu was pre-set and a bit of a challenge for me, so I won’t say a lot about it. The show, however, was fun, and because were in a fairly small space in the round (and had ponied up for premier seating), it was very close. The acrobats performed in a 16-foot diameter circular area in the middle of the room and bleeding into the aisles between the tables. There were times when I could have touched the performers just by stretching out my hand. During one, um, let’s say “sexy” performance by a very fit young man in tights and a bathtub, we even got hit with water flying off of his spinning body.

Of course it wasn’t the most elaborate show and didn’t really have a narrative, but it was still very well done. I cringed watching some of the acrobats bend and contort their bodies as if they have no spines, and the scene that included four audience members acting out a scene from a movie made me laugh out loud.

The show let out at about 11:30, and we said goodnight to our new friends and turned in. I am grateful that I slept like a log to awaken pretty refreshed today. We have a late arrival in Mallorca (which is floating past my balcony as I write this) where we’ve booked a bicycle tour. We have to be off the ship early tomorrow, so I’ll try to write up today’s adventures once we get settled back in Barcelona.