Cannes
We arrived in Cannes this morning a little late after an eventful evening. But first, next time you see us – make sure you ask about the naked guy on the bike in Barcelona (!) – I forgot to include that with yesterday’s installment.
After leaving Barcelona we set sail as usual. Lance and I headed for a late supper then to watch a game show and the show in the theater. As we ate supper it was obvious that the sea was a little rougher than usual. Leaving the dining room, we saw that the outside decks were closed due to high winds. We watched The Weakest Link gameshow in the Spinnaker lounge and noticed a little rolling, but nothing too bad. Once we got to the theater for the 9:15 show was when we could tell that things were getting fairly rough. The theater is in the very front of the ship and throughout the show there was lots of rolling around plus several loud bangs from the ship being raised up then crashing back into the ocean. Lots of people left the show, probably feeing seasick. You have to give credit to the performers – barely one missed step and they even did one part on roller skates without a miscue!
With difficulty, we made it back to our room and turned on the tv to see the conditions they were posting. At one point they showed winds of 12 (not sure what that was) – listing as hurricane strength. Evidently there was a problem with the equipment showing the severity of the seas – it showed 0 swell and smooth! After a bit it got fixed and showed very rough – meaning seas of 12-18 feet. The next morning we heard that there were winds from between 70-100 mph and that we had gone through a major storm. Items in our room were banging around so much we had to put a footstool in front of the drawers to keep them closed and we also tied together the handles on the closet doors. Things had settled by morning and we were an hour late arriving at Cannes; however, we were given an extra hour in port.
Ok…now on to Cannes! Today we had arranged to share a tour with about 18 other people. We waited about an hour for one couple to show up and then finally had to leave without them. Our tour took us through the streets of Cannes – we saw where the film festival is held each year, the beaches, fancy hotels and most importantly – the hotel where Brad and Angelina’s twins were born last year!!
Next we continued down the cost through Cape D’Antibe and Antibe. One thing that really surprised us was that this whole area borders on the French and Italian Alps and we could see them in the distance – a couple of the peaks still had a light covering of snow on them. We stopped at a small shopping area with a local fruit and meat market and a beautiful harbor.
At midday we arrived at Eze, this is a medieval town built up on a hill overlooking the whole French Riviera – the views were incredible as well as the setting of the town. We had lunch in one of the restaurants, it was pretty much a hole dug into the mountain with areas for seating. You know I will try any food (lol) but I had crepes with ham and cheese, Lance had crepes with ham, cheese, tomato and mushroom. Supposedly the French usually eat a “salty” crepe like this, then a “sweet” crepe after. Trying to stick with being true to French traditions, we split a crepe that had bananas, chocolate and whipped cream – it was really good!
This town of Eze has 2 hotels that were made from buying homes in the old town. I don’t know what it would cost to stay there, but it would have to be expensive because you are so high up with the wonderful views of town! We were able to spend some time there taking pictures of the shops, the restaurants and hotels.
After leaving Eze we headed back toward the ship and our guide pointed out homes owned by Elton John, Tina Turner and lots of Arabian shieks with lots of money!! Our final stop was at an ice cream shop recommended by our guide – she said they have over 90 different flavors of ice cream including chocolate with chilis – yuk. I had chocolate with hazelnut, Lance had Corona flavored sherbet. This is for his friends at work that teased him about sitting around drinking Corona’s all week!
We got back onto the ship without incident and should be sailing away fairly soon. Tomorrow we arrive in Livorno, Italy – we have a tour booked through the ship to go to Cinque Terre. We’ve had this booked since we booked the cruise and are really looking forward to it!