From Cannes to Monaco

I imagined Cannes to be the vibrant and classy city that I see black and white photos of every year during the film festival.

The truth is, in my cousins’ words, ‘I don’t understand the hype.’

Cannes without the film festival is like a jacket potato without butter, inoffensive but not interesting enough to excite your palate. 

The quaint architecture was pretty and the Starbucks located right next to the station certainly earned the place brownie points in my book, but the moment I started wandering I could feel myself itching to get back to Nice.

We grabbed a pizza in a pretty lavish pizza parlour, with babies in Burberry jackets and dogs having their dinner at the table which kept me fairly entertained for a couple of hours.

Most of our time was spent wandering down the harbour and pretending to shop for a new boat… considering the size of some of those yachts it was definitely us living in dreamland.

If you have time to kill and some money to spend, Cannes wouldn’t be a bad shout. Although you could probably find most of the shops in Nice, where there’s more to do and a prettier coastline to take Instagram shots of.

Cannes sadly just didn’t excite me as much as Nice did… Then again, I wouldn’t turn down a ticket to the Cannes Film Festival next year!

 

Our last stop on the South of France tour was Monaco… oh my dear Monaco! It was love at first sight the second my feet left the train, the country made my face light up and my heart skip a beat. I don’t think I’ve had an instant love like it since I stepped off the train in Venice two years ago.

 

The city-state was surprisingly tiny, much smaller than I had imagined, but filled with more magic than Dynamo.

 

I walked out of the station and was immediately surrounded by cliffs either side, passing a small quaint church I was led straight out onto the formula one track. As you can imagine, it was an extremely difficult task to contain my excitement.

 

The track is free for anybody to walk along, run along and skip along to their hearts content. Cruising alongside the harbour, I was praying for a race to start - the noise must make the mountains rumble.

 

I walked up the steps to Monaco-Ville, the capital of the country – which is pretty mind-blowing considering I walked the entirety of it in about 20 minutes. The old town is quaint and medieval, like going back in time it wouldn’t have surprised me if horse drawn carts were still being used.

 

Monaco-Ville is home to the church where Grace Kelly got married, which scarily reminded me of the Vatican (tourists being herded around like cattle), so much so that I lasted 5 minutes before I had to leave. My cousin stayed though and seemed pretty impressed with the place when she came out.

 

We caught the tail end of the guards changing at the Prince’s Palace, which drew a nicely sized crowd. Before my cousin ran off with a particularly handsome guard, we explored a bit of Monte Carlo and headed back to the station.

 

I would imagine there is so much more to see and do in Monaco than can be accomplished in a day, but nothing beat the panoramic views from Monaco-Ville.

 

I would be wholeheartedly content to move there tomorrow, but considering the cheapest place to live is a few million it may take me a while.