Cannes Film Festival

Dan, who was staying in the same room in our hostel, worked in the film industry and was in town for the Cannes Film Festival. He was kind enough to drive us over the Cannes in his rental car. Julie (Canadian from our hostel), Stephanie and I got to Nice around 4:30pm, which meant that I was late in meeting up with Delan, a guy I met back in London. I walked over in front of the Carlton to see if he would still be there, while Dan showed Steph and Julie where they would most likely be able to see Antonio Banderas. For the first time I wish I had my cell phone again. I never did meet up with Delan that day, sorry bro.



I walked back to where the girls were standing and we decided that we should grab a quick bite to eat so that we could get a good spot near the red carpet. All the hotels are near the beach are fully booked and they all display large movie premiere posters. The big premieres all started around 7ish. Standing in line for a sandwich, I noticed a girl that looked a lot like Naomi, one of the American girls I met the night before. It was one of those I think I know you moments and then I noticed she was staring over as well. It turned out to be Naomi and she had been separated from her tour group. So she tagged along with us.



After getting a sandwich we started to head back to the red carpet area. Julie and Steph led the way as they knew the good spot to stand. The sidewalk traffic went up and there were tons of people walking around. Naomi and I were chit catting and suddenly we lost Julie and Steph in the crowd. After waiting around for a while we were still unable to find them. I wasn't really interested in the Hollywood's invasion to southern France, so Naomi and I headed to the village part of Cannes up the the hill.



There is a church that is up at the top of the hill which overlooks the entire coastline where the film festival takes place. On the way down there is an iron mask. Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask is said to be a mixture of fact and fiction. It is local folklore that this mask was his inspiration for that story. Near the bottom of hill by the bus stations there is a large mural that depicts all the the films that debuted at previous Cannes Film Festivals.



Naomi met back up with group later that night and I met some Korean girls that were waiting to see Jackie Chan. I joined in since there was nothing else to do. Jackie Chan did come out. He blew kisses and waved to the cheering crowds. It turned out that the Korean girls were staying in Nice at a different hostel, so we headed to the train station together. It turns out that they were all teachers in Korea and had just gotten done with college. So this trip was their vacation before becoming inducted to the real world.



The second time I returned to Cannes was with some Canadians I met at my hostel. Sacha, Tim, Jasen and Chad had been traveling Europe for a little over 2 months and now just happened to be in Nice. Dan drove us over again in the early afternoon. After departing ways with Dan, we ended up chilling at the beach most of the time. The beaches of Cannes are probably the nicest we've been to in Southern France. It is actually sandy and the waters are just as blue as Nice. On the last Cannes outing, Sacha and I were swimming and ran into a lot of jelly fish. They were purple and the largest one was about the size of a basketball. We were actually able to capture one of the smaller ones on a towel.





On our trek back to the train station we stopped by the red carpet to see if we could spot some stars. That night it happened to be a lot of them out. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Clint Eastwood, Sharon Stone, and Tim Robbins. Brad and Angelina even waved at us. It started to rain so we headed back to the train station and grabbed a free trip back.