Cascade of spring impressions ( 4)
Cascade of spring impressions! (4)
Our trips along the Cô te d'Azur.
1. Saint-Tropez!
Once, while still living in Russia, I watched this series. The town seemed fabulous, with white and pink palaces, an unusually beautiful promenade, and bohemia and movie stars at every step. At that time, I never dreamed that someday I would be able to visit there.
Well, as you know, in 1950 the film "And God Created Woman" was filmed here, which made Brigitte Bardot a famous actress, and St. Tropez - a famous seaside resort. In my opinion, the celebrity of this resort is its name, and that’s all, we didn’t particularly like it there.
Okay, let's get together, let's go, come. We decided to park closer to the center, but it is very problematic to do it there, the streets are narrow, there are no places. We returned to the embankment, there are many paid parking lots, and left the car there. And went to look for the city that lives in my mind. Embankment, port, as they say with expensive yachts...
everything is normal, or we were not lucky, we did not see a single unusual yacht. There are small ones, there are bigger ones, there are big ones, but all this has been seen in other places, and on the same Cote d'Azur too. Not thrilled. Maybe somewhere in the vicinity there are villas of famous actors, couturiers and other celebrities, but in the very center everything is very unprepossessing: shabby houses with rotten shutters, with flying plaster, there are boutiques, but also some not visible, except for mannequins in shop windows. I usually don’t notice everything ugly and plain in other cities and countries, or simply don’t pay attention, because I want to see only beauty, but here it was difficult for me to do it. They didn't even know what to photograph. Crowds of tourists walk along the same streets as we do, apparently there is nothing else here.
“The most famous place in the city is the embankment: many artists exhibit their paintings here, and everything together - the sea, the sun, white stones and bright creations - look very impressive. » I wouldn’t describe this place like that for anything, well, somehow there is no special effect, it’s somehow boring here.
Since the season was not quite a bathing season, we did not go to look for the famous beaches.
It would be possible to climb to La Citadelle de Saint-Tropez, but the sun began to bake a little, and you need to climb uphill, then we abandoned this idea. Since we didn’t like it here, we decided not to waste time and go to Nice along the coast, because we drove here by autobahn.
On the way we passed Sainte-Maxime, Saint-Raphael, Roquebrune-sur-Argens… In Sainte-Maxime there are parking lots right by the sea and a beautiful sandy beach. Stopped, sunbathed and further. The coast is simply mesmerizing, you can't take your eyes off it. Further Frejus, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Le Cannet, Golfe-Juan, Vallauris. Cute seaside towns, somewhere we stopped, somewhere we just drove by.
We stopped once again on the shore, soaked our feet in the water, however, it was cold, sunbathed, drove slowly further, examining and admiring the towns, coasts, nature, the sea ...
2. Cagnes sur Mer, Juan les Pins, Antibes, Vence, St. Paul de Vence, Grasse.
We passed all these towns, of course, not in one day, it was not realistic for us to do this, because we often stopped, sunbathed when the weather allowed, or simply sat somewhere on the embankment in a cafe, allowed ourselves to be lazy. As usual, I took all the sun protection factors on the trip, I didn’t have to use it even once, but I tanned well, such was the weather.
And there are a lot of expensive and beautiful yachts in the port of Antibes. But we made a stop near the old town. It was a Sunday, so parking was free right on the beach. Just great. We went to the embankment and went for a walk / sunbathing.
There is such sand here, on the beach there was beach basketball with loud rhythmic music, and the atmosphere itself was somehow festive and cheerful. We involuntarily succumbed to this mood, but we did not start dancing, but, as usual, fell on the beach. Then, nevertheless, we walked to the fortress wall, but we didn’t go to the city itself, we drove through it more than once ...it was much more pleasant to bask in the sun. There is also an archaeological museum and a Picasso museum, but in such weather we had no time for museums. We didn’t go to Marineland, something similar has already been visited in other countries.
St. Paul de Vence
First we went to Vence, walked there a bit, didn’t like it and went to St. Paul de Vence. The places there are beautiful, hills, not large serpentines ...A medieval village with fairly well-preserved fortifications deserves attention. We parked without problems and went into the city to look at the narrow streets, old houses, shop windows...
I can't imagine that people live normal lives in these houses. In part, it reminded me of old Dubrovnik, I also wondered there, what do the apartments in these houses look like at the moment? How do they deliver furniture there, etc. But not a single door in the house was opened so that at least a little bit could look inside.
We were in Cannes on May 26, the closing day of the 66th Cannes Film Festival. They didn’t let anyone take pictures on the stairs, they were preparing to receive movie stars. The embankment is blocked, tourists around the darkness ...
The magnificent Croisette with extravagant hotel palaces, pompous villas, beautiful yachts, golden sandy beaches, expensive cars on the streets ...in a word, a fashionable resort. This is how we saw this city, and we, too, like Nice, really liked it.
Many hotels are waiting for someone: the red carpet, everything is fenced, there is security, photographers and onlookers-tourists.
And we get on a sightseeing tram (the ticket costs 10.00 euros), put on headphones and go forward through the streets of Cannes to the old city, known as the Le Suquet quarter. There are magnificent views of Cannes from here.
After the trip, we settled in a cafe on the waterfront to watch people and just relax. More and more people grew: ladies in extravagant outfits with dogs dressed no less extravagantly than their mistresses. One was especially memorable: all in pink and openwork, and her dog was also in some kind of "dog shoes" and all in pink bows. Another lady was pushing a miniature pram in front of her. I also thought it was too late for my daughter, but it doesn’t look like a lady to walk with her granddaughter, and when she passed by, I saw a small dog in the stroller! This has not yet been observed.
It was good to sit, they had already made a special passage for celebrities, and they, one by one, began to pass to the Palais des Festivals, but it was time to go home.
Having made the last circle along the embankment, we set off for the parking lot, but we had to somehow get out of Cannes, we didn’t want to leave this city, in which the festive atmosphere reigned.
To be continued. . .
