A quarantine made a city
Lord Brougham was stranded here in 1834, built a house, and Europe followed.
Mister No — CC BY 3.0 · Rüdiger Stehn from Kiel, Deutschland — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Rijksmuseum — CC0 · Spielvogel — CC BY-SA 4.0
The seafront of Cannes: a promenade some two kilometres long along the bay, with palms, grand hotels and private beaches, and the thing the city's entire image is built around. La Croisette is manufactured, not accidental. Until the 1830s Cannes was a fishing village. Then Lord Brougham, the former British Lord Chancellor, was stranded there by a quarantine on the Italian border, liked the climate, built a house and returned every winter. The British aristocracy followed, then the Russian, and Cannes became northern Europe's winter resort. That explains the original timing: the season was winter, not summer. The wealthy came to escape the northern cold, and sea bathing only became fashionable later, in the twentieth century. The Cannes Film Festival, founded in 1946, added the second layer of the image. During the festival days in May the town is effectively given over to the film industry, prices peak, and the red carpet runs up to the Palais des Festivals at the end of the promenade. Practical points: walking the promenade is free and always open. The beaches come in two kinds: free public stretches, and private hotel beaches charging a daily rate for a lounger and parasol. Avoid festival week unless you are part of it.
Lord Brougham was stranded here in 1834, built a house, and Europe followed.
The wealthy came to escape northern cold; bathing became fashionable later.
A nineteenth-century aristocratic resort, and a film festival from 1946.
Boulevard de la Croisette, Cannes
La CroisetteThe Croisette is Cannes abridged in two kilometres: a palm seafront along a turq2 min walk
CannesCannes was a small fishing town that became the most famous address on the Frenc5 min walk
Palais des Festivals & the Red Carpet StepsThe Palais des Festivals is what makes Cannes 'Cannes': here the world's most fa7 min walk
Old Port of CannesThe historic harbour of Cannes, between the Palais des Festivals and the Suquet 10 min walk
Cannes War MemorialA memorial to the men of Cannes killed in the First World War, near the old port12 min walkYes. Between the private beaches there are free public stretches on the Croisette itself, and the public Plage du Midi west of the port is wider, less crowded and cheaper for a family. The private beaches sell comfort — a lounger, a towel, service — not access to the sea. The sea itself is free to everyone under French law.
Le Suquet, the old quarter on the hill above the port, with its lanes, its eleventh-century tower, the Musée des Explorations du Monde in the castle, and a view from the top across the whole bay. The covered Forville market for food in the morning. And the Lérins islands, fifteen minutes by ferry — pine woods and the prison of the Man in the Iron Mask, far quieter than the town.
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