A New Adventure in France

Moving further east we based ourselves for a few days at a campsite just outside Cannes. We stuck to the coast road and passed the Massif d’Esterel, a mountain range that looks rather like a terracotta coloured version of the Italian Dolomites. This is a lovely rugged expanse of coastline and slightly quieter because of it.

The campsite was just next to the river Siagne and had the unexpected bonus of having direct access to the marina area and a place for launching (or throwing in) Joe’s boat. Joe was even offered a mooring place – a tad over the top for an inflatable but it has probably given Joe ideas of bringing something bigger down here! Any way he was straight out on the water within the port area and can now truthfully claim that he has been out in his boat on the French Riviera. Well at least he was out in it – the marinas are full of expensive boats but none of them were out, probably because the Mistral was blowing so hard and the sea was actually quite rough.

When the wind blows it tends to blow for several days at a time so we had a breezy cycle along the coast to Cannes to check that out. The scale of Cannes certainly makes Saint Tropez look like a small village. After passing the old town and port we made our way along to La Croisette, well known from coverage of the Cannes Film Festival. At one end is the theatre complex with the red carpet stairs where so many film stars have been photographed and where a queue of people now wait to get their own photographs or selfie taken. On the beach side of La Croisette is the small public beach area, dwarfed by the private beaches and restaurants of the high end hotels opposite the beach. Coffee stands dotted along the road offer the perfect opportunity to stop and absorb it all.

Heading further east we were able to park just a little way outside Antibes in a pull-in that gave us splendid views across the bay towards the town and that, due to wind and sea spray, left us with a covering of salt on the van and trailer that left us in need of a car wash! We had a lovely coastal walk back to Antibes and along the ramparts of the charming old town, teeming with restaurants, a covered market and lively shops. Unsurprisingly, artists have been inspired in this area as well. To leave the area we drove down towards the Cap d’Antibes with its luxury hotels and beyond to Juan-Les- Pins, singing the words we can remember of Peter Sarsted’s ‘Where do you go to my lovely’.

As it’s not possible to overnight off-grid anywhere along the coast we headed a little way inland into the Alpes-Maritime to Saint Paul de Vence, a beautiful hilltop town, whose patron saint is Sainte Claire, so a fitting stop. The village is full of beautiful high-end shops and art galleries and it’s ramparts give wonderful views back down to the coast. Many artists, including Chagall, have lived or spent time in the town over the years and our overnight parking spot was right opposite a wonderful independent art foundation – Fondation Maeght – France’s first independent art foundation, mainly featuring works of Miro and Giacometti.. The grounds contain a sculpture park and the impressive gallery building houses temporary exhibitions and permanent collections.

It’s easy to stereotype different nationalities and when we think of the French we often think of the game of boules or pétanque. But that image is certainly not stereotypical, given the large number of people we’ve seen playing it, either casually in village squares or more organised tournaments. We particularly enjoyed sitting in the town café at Saint Paul de Vence and watching the locals play in early evening sunlight.