Cannes; Saturday, 13 December, 2014

Thankfully I’d also consumed nearly a litre of fizzy water in the restaurant so by the time I woke up, just before 9, I felt fine. I headed down for a late breakfast and then out into town for the day.

The previous evening I’d seen that the centre that hosts the annual Cannes Film Festival was this evening hosting the TF1 Music Awards, and consequently the centre of Cannes was going to be closed down from mid-afternoon onwards. With this in mind and a generally good weather forecast I decided to head down to the harbour and catch the ferry across to one of les Îles de Lérins, four small islands located about half a mile off the coast of Cannes.

The largest of these and the one with most attractions and therefore the most regular ferry service is Île Sainte-Marguerite so that’s where I headed to.

Having arrived on the island, as one of only five people on the boat, the first stop, after a brisk hike up the hill from the harbour, was the fort. This is an impressive building, clearly visible from Cannes, and amongst its many other uses it’s housed a prison that as its star attraction was home to the Man in the Iron Mask for 11 years prior to his final transfer to the Bastille in Paris.

I had a good wander round the fort including the excellent museum and the prison, taking advantage of the whole site being free to get into, rather than the normal €6.

From the fort I then followed the coastal path that makes its way around the edge of the island, a route of around 8Km. I stopped of lots of times on the way round to take photos and to step off the path to visit a number of sites located nearby including WWII block houses and Napoleonic cannonball ovens.

By the time I finally made it back to the harbour it was approaching 4pm and I had just enough time to make use of the only other island facilities that were open (the two restaurants and two snack bars all being closed for the winter), before catching the ferry back across to Cannes.

Including wandering around the fortress and the detours of the path to look at other sites I think I ended up walking about 10Km, which I hadn’t really noticed until I’d been sat down on the boat for 15 minutes and went to stand up to find that my whole body had stiffened up.

Staggering gently from stiff limbs I wandered back from the harbour into town to find a café for a quick cup of coffee, at which point I suddenly realised how hungry I was having not eaten anything since breakfast. A quick wander through the neighbouring Christmas market soon resolved that in the form of a delicious Crêpe and the stiff limbs were resolved through the medicinal use of Vin Chaud.

I had a little wander through town before finding another very nice restaurant just back from the harbour side and had another delicious dinner, this time though with a much less potent but very pleasant white wine. Stuffed, but not sloshed this time I headed back to the hotel to the comfort of my bed to let my limbs de-stiffen naturally.