France part 4: Cannes

Wow, it’s been 8 months since I last posted! Life got busy with Millie’s graduation and then getting her ready for college. But I’m back and ready to continue my series on our France trip (which was last Feb-March). Hopefully my memory is good enough to recall it! This is obviously mostly for my own benefit so I can look back and remember our trip, but if anyone else is planning a trip to the French Riviera, hopefully this will be helpful!

So, we left off after our first full day in France where we got to go to the Carnival in Nice, which was so fun. On our second day, Chad and I got up and went for a walk along the sea and stopped by the nearby cafe for pain au chocolate and chai (for me) and coffee (for Chad) while the kids slept in.

For lunch, we found a great restaurant called Café Lacan and enjoyed some delicious pizza before heading out to Cannes. Budget tip: we love to find good pizza places on vacation because splitting 2-3 pizzas is usually much cheaper than everyone getting their own meal. We went back to this place a few more times because it made eating out affordable and the pizza was amazing!

One thing I love about the French Riviera is that almost all restaurants have lots of outdoor seating. In fact, I don’t think we ate indoors once. Most places have covered seating for rainy days, and some have big heaters for the cooler days. It’s such a nice, mild climate there that they can operate this way. And it’s nice seeing so many people out and about in the winter! So different than in the midwest where we stay cooped up all winter because it’s so cold.

After lunch, we hopped on the train for a short ride to Cannes.

Cannes is famous for its film fest. Although it wasn’t going on at the time, we did find some famous handprints which was fun.

Even though it was a cloudy day, the beach was still beautiful.

We enjoyed walking around and taking in the sights.

You can’t actually stand in front of this sign like this because there’s a drop-off right in front of it. So this is actually the back side of the sign, but Addie flipped the picture for us so it would look right. So incase you were like, “woah, Katie’s parting her hair on the right side now, that’s crazy” – no worries, it’s still a left part. So tricky. 😉

We enjoyed exploring Le Suquet (old town Cannes). The medieval church Notre-Dame d’Espérance (built in 1642) was especially cool. And being up on the Mont Chevalier hilltop provided some beautiful views of the city.

We finished off our time in Cannes at some gift shops.

Then we hopped back on the train and headed back to Antibes.

That evening, we got to benefit from Millie’s French class assignment – making a cooking video. It worked out pretty great that she was in France for it! She treated us to Jacques Pepin’s Chicken Persillade made with fresh ingredients from the market. It was delicious!