Cannes-ed My Way Into the Film Festival

Ok, I maybe didn’t quite “Cannes” myself into the Cannes Film Festival, but I did have a heck of a time frolicking around Cannes whilst the festival was taking place.

It started off on a great foot when I checked into my hotel, the BW Premier Collection Mondial.

I arrived in Cannes far before my check-in, so I asked if I could leave my luggage with the front desk until check-in. I’d actually had something I had to do for work before I was able to set out and explore, so I asked if I could momentarily sit in the lobby before officially dropping off my luggage, and the woman at the front desk was incredibly kind. She was extremely warm and welcoming, and chatted with me for a bit while I was in the lobby. It made my day talking with her! While I was working, another employee came out and asked me if he could bring me a cappuccino or a water – I hadn’t even officially checked in, and they were asking if they could bring me beverages. I hadn’t had coffee yet that morning, so I happily accepted his offer of caffeine.

After completing my work and dropping off my luggage, I set off to explore as much as I could in the 24 hours I had in Cannes.

Ever the book nerd, I began by visiting the FNAC bookstore, which was absolutely massive.

I stumbled upon the clothbound Bridgerton series that I regretted not buying in Paris a few years back, but this time, they had all of the books.

I heavily regretted not buying them again, but I knew I would not be able to read them at my current level of French, and I also was attempting to conserve suitcase space. I learned my lesson the last time I visited France and went home with far too many items.

One thing that has always interested me is how boring French books are these days. I know, I know, harsh take, but come on.

This is what their bookstores look like. Nearly every spine is white. It’s so boring and a little sterile-looking.

I left the Bridgerton series on their shelf, and continued on my exploration of Cannes.

Between the three southern French cities, Cannes was by far my favorite in terms of it’s architecture and beauty.

This was of no surprise to me, since it’s the home of the Cannes Film Festival.

It was fun to see their various signs hanging in the streets.

Since I was visiting during the film festival, I’d made reservations for my lunch and dinner, as I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to find an open and available restaurant with the flood of visitors in the city.

I had some time before my lunch reservation, so I slowly strolled through the city.

My lunch reservations were near the Marché Forville, which was on my list to visit, so I decided to explore the market.

Hot take: the market in Nice was better.

The Cannes market was certainly larger, but the market in Nice was just a little bit nicer. Though the Cannes market did have these really cool bags of spices.

I really wanted a little scoop of one of those spices, but I definitely did not need any spontaneous spice purchases.

When it was finally time for my reservation, I headed to Bistrot Gourmand – which was completely empty.

I was a bit baffled, because I expected every restaurant to be full, and for a moment I worried that there was a reason it was empty and the food wouldn’t be any good.

However, over time, other guests began to trickle in, and I think I’d just selected one of their earlier reservations of the day.

They brought me some delicious, tiny little toasts with a black olive spread.

I love anything with olives and I ate all of this.

I ended up ordering a mushroom truffle ravioli with parmesan, and it was sooooo delicious.

I felt like I stumbled on a little secret in Cannes.

After my delightful meal, I walked toward the port, both to observe the action of the boats coming in and out of the port, and with the goal of taking a ferry to Saint-Honorat Island.

On the way, I passed the beautiful City Hall.

We love a French building.

The port was absolutely full of boats, and it was so cute to walk along the water, watching the action.

They had even more posters along the water for the Film Festival, which was getting me hyped as I walked.

Finding the ferry to go to Saint-Honorat Island was slightly challenging, as you had to walk through a parking lot to get there, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was going the right way.

Once you find this walkway and make your way to the end of it, there’s a little counter where you can purchase your tickets.

I’d purchased mine in advance, and headed down to the port, which was number 6 for Saint-Honorat Island.

Once aboard, we set sail!

It was fun to see Cannes from the water – such a pretty city.

It didn’t hold a candle to the beauty of the water, though.

I bet the people on that sailboat were having the time of their lives.

Saint-Honorat Island is currently home to monks who make delicious wine! They can really do anything.

Walking along the island, you could see little fields where they grew their fruits.

There were several historic buildings on the island, which made for a lovely walk.

There were also some cute little friends on the island.

What a little cutie!

I was most excited to see Lérins Abbey, which was stunning.

Let’s take a closer look.

I really loved the arches and the stonework, but the thick canopy of flowers completely stole the show.

Stunning, darling.

As I approached the Abbey, the arches and columns framed the beautiful flowers nicely.

Let’s check out the church.

The interior was lovely but a bit unassuming – no qualms here, I’ve just seen churches with a bit more oomph. What works for the monks works for the monks!

I also walked past the areas where the monks were growing their grapes for their wine!

How lovely!

I particularly enjoyed this little sign, which declared that this area was for the monks only.

It was a beautiful day for a stroll, and Saint-Honorat Island was the place to do it.

After exploring as much of the island as I could, I headed back toward the dock, on the way coming across a bit of a haunting statue of the Virgin Mary.

There was something powerful about this structure at the edge of the water – the elements had left smudges of dirt, dust, and rust along the base of the statue, as well as Mary herself, which left a strong impact as you passed by.

The views along this stretch of sand were pretty beautiful – incomparable blues!

When the next boat arrived to bring us back to shore, I settled in, enjoying the views. As we grew closer to land, suddenly the group around me broke out into commotion, with everyone moving toward the sides of the boat, cameras out. It was the kind of fluster that comes from seeing a celebrity, and since we were in Cannes during the Film Festival, I assumed someone famous was in our vicinity. Everyone was pointing to one yacht in particular, and as I looked, I didn’t see anyone I recognized, so I figured it probably wouldn’t matter to me whoever it was, since I didn’t recognize them. The group was talking entirely in French, and I didn’t understand a word of what they said – until we were getting off the boat, and someone in English said that they couldn’t believe we saw Leonardo DiCaprio on his yacht.

I didn’t recognize him myself, but I did start to hum a little bit of “The Man” by Taylor Swift under my breath.

Back on land, I decided to finally walk along the Film Festival grounds, starting at first, at the gift shop. Where else would one start?

I got a pretty cool t-shirt that I’m scared to wear in case I ruin it, and then headed toward the main entrance of the festival.

I can’t lie, this was actually super exciting. I’d seen this set of stairs in photos everywhere – and they’re absolutely iconic.

At this point, I was still delusional that I could possibly get into the festival somehow – so I stopped into their office to see if there were any available tickets. No-can-do.

They did have a cute little section on the history of the festival, which was fun!

And then – for the main red carpet.

There were people practicing positions and poses on the carpet, which made me wonder who they were there on behalf of. Photographers practicing for later? Future attendees? Very curious.

I also noted that there were some very beautiful flowers climbing the security railings around the red carpet.

They should get those in the shots!

While I was here, a French newsperson followed me with their camera, which made me feel rather fabulous. Would love to find out if that made their b-roll footage for the news!

Sunburn still going strong.

I wanted to check out the Cinéma de la Plage, which is where anyone is able to attend a screening, each night of the festival.

I knew that if I couldn’t get an actual ticket, I’d check out the Cinéma de la Plage, which would actually be hosting a movie-themed concert that evening.

It was a really cool set up – and even cooler at night once the events began!

At that point, I headed back to (officially) check into my hotel and get ready for dinner. I’d made reservations at La Petite Maison, and they’d called me twice to confirm my reservation, and to let me know they would only hold it for ten minutes after my reservation time if I was late. They also emailed me, so it felt pretty important that I get there on time.

As a Capricorn who loves being on time, I naturally arrived early. Too early. So I walked along the beach outside of the restaurant until about five minutes before my reservation.

At that point, I was quite confused, because standing in front of the restaurant, there were no doors to enter. The building was under construction, so I thought there might have been a second entrance somewhere else. I could hear very loud chatter from the restaurant, so I knew there was an entrance somewhere, and that there were already people inside. However, I could find no side door.

The clock was ticking and I felt nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to get into the damn building, when I saw a man near the front of the building wearing a security guard outfit. I asked him about the restaurant and where to enter, and he pointed toward what looked like the front – except there was still no door. I was very confused, but I figured I’d walk toward where he was pointing just in case there was something I was missing.

The only thing I was missing was the actual door. Now, it’s two minutes before my reservation, so I turn to him again, and he tells me that the door will open when the restaurant does. Apparently I had the first reservation of the evening at 7 p.m., and they didn’t open until right at that time.

On the hour, the man hit a button, and no lie, an entire wall of the building retracted away, revealing their front doors.

So confusing.

I went on in, and immediately realized that the reason why I could hear so much chatter emanating from the restaurant was because there was the most amount of waiters I have ever seen in my life.

I was the first customer at 7 p.m. No other customers were there. Yet. There were so many waiters. I have never seen so many waiters in my life. It was insane. I started counting them because there were so many. I got to 40 and I quit. It’s not a large restaurant, so there had to have been one waiter for every 2 or 3 tables. At most.

The only people in the photo above who are customers, are the two people seated. Everyone else in the background is an employee at this restaurant!

Needless to say, the service was excellent. I ordered truffle pasta, and it was insanely good. Maybe the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life.

While I ate, I observed the interesting cast of characters around me. There was a woman seated alone next to me who was decked out in designer, and wearing her Prada sunglasses indoors. She spent most of the meal on the phone with someone, and had an interesting energy about her.

Next, we had a recurring character.

On my flight from Zurich to Nice, there was a woman on the plane who was incredibly rude to our flight attendants.

Every now and then, I see a person and have an immediate reaction – as soon as she boarded the plane, I took one look at her and thought “That is a mean person.” I felt like that was a completely unfair judgment of a person I didn’t know at all, so I shook that thought away until we were up in the air, when she was beyond rude to our flight attendants. I couldn’t even believe it. I’m talking full eye-rolling, smirks of disgust, and snapping at them. I could not believe how rude she was, and how kind and professional our flight attendants were in return.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that very same woman walk into this restaurant. I began to fear for all of 700 of the waiters – she had enough meanness to be rude to all of them!

I felt like I was watching an episode of a reality show – what were the odds that we ran into one another again? She ended up being seated two tables away from me, where she gathered with a large group of friends.

The waiters at the restaurant were exceptionally lovely – while I was seated, a waiter who wasn’t even serving my table walked up to me and said something in French to me. I asked him if he spoke English and clarified that my French was bad, and in a heavy French accent, he said, “You are very elegant, madame.”

I think about that about once a month and will probably never forget that. Hey! No matter how my day is going, a random French man thinks I’m elegant. Hell yeah.

I couldn’t resist dessert since my dinner was so good. I wanted something fruity, so I opted for an apple tart.

I took one bite of this, stopped chewing, and very nearly said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” out loud, because this tart was so damn good.

Look how perfect it is. Is this a joke? It was too delicious.

After my meal wrapped up, I walked back to the Cinéma de la Plage, which was absolutely bumping.

While I stood in line to attend the concert, the French news put me on camera for the second time.

Don’t worry, there would be a third.

I would love to know where this footage lives. I was literally stuck in a line, nowhere to go, and they just plopped their equipment down right in front of me, and voila. I was on the French news three times during the Cannes Film Festival.

I hung around at the concert for awhile, which was a really fun time.

I decided to walk back to the red carpet to see it at night, and to see if there happened to be anyone exciting walking down it.

It was empty.

But this time, I saw something interesting! The paparazzi/photographers had a setup right at the end of the carpet, with various sizes of ladders so they could snap their photos.

A fascinating glimpse behind-the-scenes!

And with that, I retired to my hotel for the evening.

The next morning, I stopped at a patisserie called Lenôtre for breakfast, and to snag a snack for my train ride ahead.

They had a mouthwatering assortment.

I opted for a croissant (classic) and a Bostock, which I’d never heard of before.

It’s made of brioche soaked in almond syrup and orange blossom water, covered in an almond creme and toasted almond slides, and dusted with powdered sugar.