Thursday, April 23

Thursday, April 23, 2009
Our cruise port today was Cannes, France, home of the International Cannes Film Festival. I believe that should be taking place next month. We are right in the heart of the French Riviera. Since we were not sure about whether we could get back on a train due to the train schedules, we decided this morning that we would stay in Cannes and check out the city. Hey, we've never been here so it's a learning experience. The ship tenders here since the ship is too large to pull into the port. We were allowed to get on a tender by 9:15 a.m., so we gathered up cameras and stuffed some items in the backpack and headed out.
We met some girls on the tender who were planning to take the train to Nice (where we really wanted to go). I told them the trains could be a problem, but that they should at least go to the station and try. We still just walked thru the old pedestrian streets of Cannes. It's so quaint with the cobblestone paths . There are many shops and restaurants along the narrow streets and when you look up you notice ladies shaking out sheets and hanging laundry from their windows. All that I ever pictured about France since I was a child and saw the movie "The Red Balloon". Anybody remember that? After a while we started looking for some items to purchase for lunch and take to the beach. I saw a little olive and olive oil store that had buckets of olives so we got a mix of olives in a baggie for 1.80 Euros but only received .80 cents back for our 5 Euros we gave the guy. We got past all the tourist shops and found a local open market. Of course I had to head straight to the cheese vendor. There was a huge hunk of Parmesean Reggiano for 24E per kg. I looked at Chip and we began to try to calculate how many grams would be in either ½ or ¼ pound. Before we could even determine just how much we wanted the vendor was asking what we would like, in French, of course. So even though I said 200 grams, he was still confused so I just used my fingers to show him I wanted a "small" piece of the cheese. He breaks off a tiny piece and hands it to me to try. While that was still pretty good, it did not accomplish what I wanted. So then I motioned "Bigger" and he picked up the large knife and proceeded to mark the block of cheese and then cut when I said "Si". My entire day's worth of communication was Bon Giorno and Merci. It worked for us…. At the end of the market I smelled bread and right there was a bread store so we walked in and purchased a baguette for .80 and hiked our way to the beach. I wore capris and a tank top and Chip had put his swimsuit under his shorts. We brought beach towels from the ship and spread out on the sparkly quartz sand in view of our cruise ship. Our beach picnic lunch consisted of black Greek olives and various marinated green olives with the long baguette and the parmesean reggiano and a bottled water. If only I could have turned that water into wine!! I did bring some sunscreen, but of course I didn't think we would be there long enough to need it, so now I have a red glow on my face and the lower part of my legs and just a little on my arms.
We left the beach after 2 hours and continued to walk thru Cannes. There was a little store on a corner called "la porcelain blanche". I immediately yelled to Chip, "white dishes"!! Since I started my new dishware collection of white square dishes I have not been able to find a square sugar bowl and square salt and pepper shakers. So my awesome find in Cannes was BOTH of those items in this store for 11 Euros total. I also bought a Cannes t-shirt since I did not pack enough warm weather clothes.
After returning to the ship via tender we changed into swimsuits and headed for the pool. Chip wanted to go for a swim while my desire was to soak my aching feet and legs in the hot tub. There are four hot tubs on the pool deck. There is an adults only pool and an "everyones" pool. The pool available to everyone also has a twisty turny slide that Chip just couldn't resist. However, when I didn't see him land in the pool at the bottom I knew he had got stuck (which he admits he did). The line at the top of the slide backed up a little as the kids waited for him to get down. That pool is a bit heated as the adults only pool is quite cold, so no one has been swimming in it.
We came back to our room and got cleaned up for dinner. I made reservations at the Bistro French restaurant for this evening. We opened the bottle of Coppola Claret and I took a large glass to dinner. We dressed up for the evening and had photos taken. I had the French onion soup and Chip had scallops for his appetizer. The scallops were rubbery so he sent those back and just had the rochefort cheese salad. Chip ordered the swordfish with lentils and I had the beef tenderloin (mignon) with carrots and mushrooms.. for dessert we shared the crème brulee. All was very delicious.
After dinner we hit the casino and played some slot machines. No big winners, so we came back to the room for some needed rest and blogging. Tomorrow we port in Livorno, Italy.