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How Cannes was
founded

Cannes reflections

Croisette and port

Not to forget anyway, most important, if it is possible, avoid July-August!! What can be more pleasant than lunching on the beach in January, when the sun is not very hot and the Esterel is clearly visible with a blue sky as decor? The Croisette is empty, the air is sharp and life is beautiful. Sigh.......
I left you at the top of the Suquet in my last article, remembering the history of Cannes and Lord Brougham, its founder and inspirer.
Brougham’s example will be followed by a large part of the British aristocracy. Other rich and influential British soon followed, encouraged to find some alternative winter retreat to “Nice” where an ”inferior” class was established itself, and a highly cultivated society took root. Royalty was not far behind. Though queen Victoria didn’t disdain Nice, it was where, 18 miles down the coast that her sons Leopold, duke of Albany and Edward, Prince of Wales, discovered the more entertaining aspects of the French Riviera. The modern Cannes was born.
A few dates: 1853, the railway comes to Cannes and an outline of the Croisette is build. Twenty years later, already 35 hotels and 200 villas....

Rose tinted night from Suquet

Winter becomes a favourite rendez vous place for all kind of  foreigners and artists like the vice-king of India, members of the Russian aristocracy, the Rothshilds. Never building and architecture has been more delirious. You see al styles and follies. Luxurious, from the pseudo-gothic manor to the pagoda style villa or even with a minaret, grottos, marble columns, etc....
Today, Cannes has changed a lot since the last century. Real estate promoters took over, the heirs of the magnificent manors and domains not having the money to maintain such a splendour. Luckily, some old glories remain under the pines of the Californie area where Picasso lived for a while.  Croix-des-Gardes... or stroll in the streets of Super-Cannes, modern villas with all the sophisticated and necessary gadgets, surrealistic towered castles, crazy constructions....
What of Cannes today? Its conventions and congresses, its beaches, its shopping, its “Season”? Everyone knows the “festival”. Two star-spangled weeks in May when the movie world turns this dowager resort into a painted lady, starlets cavort topless on the sands and big deals are clinched by moguls clenching big cigars in their even bigger teeth.
Casual it may seem, but behind the scenes a huge effort goes to ensure that the 50,000 people visiting this affair, with all its hype and hoopla, are not disappointed. For instance, the golden sands are raked and disinfected fastidiously every day, and the private beaches are groomed to perfection before le “beau monde” gathers for cocktails, beneath pastel-coloured parasols.
Like wise the floral arrangements. 40,000 bedding-out plants are planted on the Croisette and every season others are replanted. Cleaning crews on motorbikes with high-pressure vacuum pipes are meanwhile supposed to eliminate that other pavement peril left behind by dogs, not always successfully.
Nature also deserves an Oscar in the Cannes story. In February and early March mimosa spreads yellow fire across its hills. Boughs of mauve wisteria snake around its old ochre facades in April. Gardens burst with oleander pinks in summer and for much of the year splashes of purple and red bougainvillea everywhere are taken almost for granted.
But enough of all this enchantment. Let’s start the visit of Cannes….in next article.

Bibliography:

Tobias Smollet, "Travels through France and Italy", (Oxford University Press, Oxford, New-York in the series World Classics), John Pemble, "the Mediterranean Passion, Victorians and Edwardians in the South", (Oxford University Press 1988), Mary Blume, "Cote d'Azur. Inventing the French Riviera" (Thames and Hudson, London 1982), The Twenties, From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period, by Edmund Wilson (Cannes 1921)-“ Cannes”, by R. Bailey (Pinguin pocket)  

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Some black
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Film Festival

Cannes today