Cannes

You see Cannes in pictures. Then you get here, and you get confused.

Let me try to summarise Cannes in one sentence: it's like someone mashed together the clichéd image of a French Village with Bondi and sprinkled tropical flora over the top. 

The weather, the feel and the way people dress reminds me quite a lot of home (as is expected from a beachy town, I suppose). There are a fair few people going to and from the beach around town and therefore generally not wearing very much at all. Also it's Sydney hot here right now. And not like the cruddy summer Sydney just went through, I'm talking early 2000s Sydney when El Niño was in full swing.

The architecture, fashion and sheer amount of shops and restaurants are so amazingly French, though. See the above picture. It's 9:30pm, so it's not quite as crowded as during peak shopping time - but that kind of architecture you associate with the cute-but-awesome terraced houses around Paddington, Newtown and Surry Hills. Except each one of those ground floor rooms are shops, not domiciles. Name brand shops. Think Gucci, Polo Ralph Lauren, Chanel et al. I've grown used to associating shopping malls with modern architecture but all this stuff in old European buildings is another experience entirely.

Oh and there's palm trees. Not something I previously associated with France.

Shopping strip in my new hood

Quick personal update: I'm doing ok. I was so pre-occupied with trying to find a good place to live and making sure that my budget and my travel and worrying about my French that I forgot to take time to relax and settle down. As of about 3 hours ago, I did just that and was a pleasantly lackadaisical tourist for a while. I need to do more of this. It feels good.

Incidentally - I have found a Sushi bar in Cannes. I will try this... after getting a proper taste of French food though...

 

- ovenfoot