Cannes is a city in the French department of Alpes-Maritimes in the region of
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
It is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera.
It is a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival.
The population was of 70,400 as of the 2007 census.
Cannes is the home of numerous luxurious houses and mansions as well as many high-end
gated communities.
The city is also famous for its various luxury stores, fancy restaurants, and prestigious hotels.
Cannes' American sister city is Beverly Hills.
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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), 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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