Coastal Drive to Cannes

So hands up who knows what cannes in the south of France is famous for? yes your right of course it’s the “Cannes Film Festival” When you next visit the French Riviera you must experience the coastal drive and explore this area, plenty to see. Anywhere from Menton in the north, down to Saint Tropez in the south. Today it was from base camp at Camping L’Hippodrome in Villeneuve-Loubet to Cannes along the coast road and around Cape de Antibes, just another day meandering.

Antibes

First stop was the du Ponteil and de la Salis beaches in Antibes, just stunning and so scenic. These pictures were taken July 2021 so right in the middle of the summer holidays. If you want to know more about Antibes on the med Click on this link.

There is a car park directly behind Salis beach which we used while we took a walk along the esplanade. Did you know that an English submarine called HMS Unbroken landed sabourtues in Antibes 1942 in collaboration with the French Resistance. There is a monument erected to mark the occasion to the north of the Salis beach.

After our Antibes beach visit we drove around Cape de Antibes towards Juan les Pins.

Juan les Pins

In was back in 1923 that an american multi millionaire Frank Gould encouraged french hoteliers to open their doors in the spring rather than winter, as was the tradition in the nineteenth century, would you believe that? Though Goulds financial backing “Juan les Pins” became the centre for summer holidays on the riviera.

Frank Gould loved Juan les Pins so much he opened a hotel and Casino called the “Le Provincial” in the town in 1926.

The cape de Antibes is home to some of the largest and most beautiful homes in southern france. One that we especially liked was the Villa Aujourd’hui which also has a interesting history. Build by Barry Dierks American architect for the American soilite Mrs Audrey Chadwick in 1938. It was designed in the Art Deco modernity of Miami. In fact, she owned a villa in Palm Beach that she had christened Today.

In 1950, Jack Warner (Warner Bros Pictures) purchased the villa and Aujourd’hui received the royalty of Hollywood, notably, Charlie Chaplin and Ava Gardner.

Lots of famous people have homes on the cote d’azur, including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Bono and Elton John to name a few. . Historically, Probably the most gruesome would be King Leopold II of Belgium, also known as the Butcher of Congo. His cousin was Queen Victoria. He was a cruel repulsive man famous for his reign of terror in the free state of Congo. It is said he milked the counrty of fortunes in ivory and rubber using forced labour and is responsible for some 3-15 million deaths through torture, overwork, starvation and disease.

Juan les Pins celebrates a jazz festival in July each year and in the past has attacked such greats as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. From Juan les Pins we drove on to Golfe Juan and into Cannes.

Cannes Film Festival 2021

Well we hit Cannes on the first day of the film festival. The Cannes Festival was an idea by Philippe Erlanger, who founded the French Association of Artistic Action Director (AFAA), with cinema critics Emile Vuillermoz and Rene Jeanne. It was first film festival was held in September 1946.

The Cannes film festival is a little different to the Logies or academy awards, short films feature in the Competition, at the end of which the Short Films Jury awards a Palme d’or, and in the Short Film Corner, a professional area dedicated to meeting people, exchanging ideas and promoting films. It is one of the biggest three film festivals in europe along with the Venice Film Festival in Italy and the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany.

We didn’t have time to go to the movies but did you know that Cannes has an underwater museum? It was a British artist, Jason deCaires Taylor ,that completed a series of sculptures off the nearby island of Sainte-Marguerite. The one shown above was truly memorable when we first saw it as a bus stop advert for the museum. The artist chose a number of local citizens as models for this work.

Yes the main drag called the bd de la Croisette is home to all those famous hotels, JW Marriott, Martinez, Majestic, Intercontinental all in excess of 1000 euros a night. Think we will stick with our trusty caravan eh!! There was also all the big designer shops, Ferragamo, Hermes…. think we will stick with Aldi and Lidl.

By this time the hunger pains were just starting to bite, so grub time. There are shortage of eating places and not being to fussy we decided on italian. Fabian was a little disappointed as the pizza were all gone for the day so we settled on a chilly infused spaghetti and a chicken cesar and washed down with a glass of vino.

Well now all feed, watered and exercised out so time to head home to where the car was parked. to finish of this post here is a little youtube slideshow to conclude our little coastal trip to Cannes on the Cote d’Azur.