For almost every seaside town, there seems to be a pattern?
At the highest point, there is a fortified city, and outside its walls, houses from ancient times.
Further along, the city spreads out in three directions. It cannot only expand towards the sea (except for Monte Carlo, where construction experts build buildings in the sea).
Such is Cannes, a city on the Cote d'Azur known for the Cannes Festival and the red (or pink) carpet, on which the stars of the movie screen (or the stars of TV series) walk.
We have a clear plan when we walk around a city like this.
First, while we are still rested and full of strength, we will climb to the highest part of the city.
The view of the city is always the most beautiful from that highest point, and it can often help us decide which way to go for a walk.
We came to Cannes by train and took a bus from the train station a few stops, to shorten the walking through the streets as much as possible to the first point on our tour plan today.
We got off the bus at the foot of Le Suquet, which represents the historic heart of Cannes - it's an older district located on the hill of Mont Chevalier above the Old Port.
The history of the settlement in this place is over 2,000 years long. From an ancient and Roman fortification, through a medieval monk's estate from the 12th century, to a traditional fishing village before the modernization of the city in the 19th century.
At the very top of the hill, there is the Place de la Castre, a lookout point with a 360° panorama of the Bay of Cannes and the city, medieval castle and museum. A former monastery from the 12th century, today it is an ethnographic and historical museum (Musée des explorations du monde).
There is also the recognizable 22-meter-high Tour du Suquet defensive tower from afar, as well as the Église Notre-Dame d'Espérance, a 17th-century late-Gothic stone church known for its summer music festival and acoustics.
One flight of stairs, another flight of stairs, a third flight of stairs... And that freshness and strength we had in our legs is slowly waning.
Luckily, we didn't have any other, fourth steps, because the question is how to overcome them.
Climbing the hill, we walked into the beautiful old town.
Although steep and high, inaccessible and with a lot of stairs, I would like to live in a house like this on a hill.
Next to the plateau and the viewpoint from which there is a fantastic view of Cannes (that is, on one of its, slightly smaller half), and on which the name of the city is located.
There is a tower, the Église Notre-Dame d'Espérance de Cannes cathedral and the Musée des explorations du monde.
We stayed for a short time in the park of the museum (there was no time to enter), took a few photos of the walls of the old town and entered the cathedral.
Still rested, we didn't take a break and on some fourth, fifth and sixth steps, while passing by interesting gardens, sculptures and monuments, we went down to sea level.
We came across the port of Cannes.
Here, my attention was not attracted by yachts and ships, but by a few small houses.
At first I thought that these houses, with old photos of Nice fishermen, were there only as a reminder of some old times, when Cannes was a fishing village, but these are actually houses where fishermen keep their equipment and where they store their catch.
And not far from the area where hardworking fishermen prepare their nets for the next night, the promenade begins.
Restaurants, fountains, hotels, an area with benches where you can rest, a covered summer stage. Everything that turns a walk through a city into a pleasure.
I will not write about the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès de Cannes this time because you can see it in the previous post.
But that's why I'm going to share with you the photos and the story of La Croisette, the famous promenade by the sea.
The Promenade de la Croisette is an iconic boulevard in Cannes, about 3 kilometers long, that runs along the coast, connecting the historic district and the area with the Palais des Festivals in the west to the promontory and Port Canto marina in the east.
This boulevard is the social epicenter of the Côte d'Azur.
What used to be a narrow path by the sea coast, covered with stones and sand, in the middle of the 19th century, when the tourist potential of this region was recognized, the city began to develop rapidly.
A large number of British and Russian noble families were regular visitors to Cannes at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, so in that period the city got some of its most famous buildings.
One of the most famous buildings in this part of the Cote d'Azur is the Hotel Carlton.
Which is on all the Cannes maps.
Built in 1911, the construction costs were financed by a nobleman of the Russian Imperial Romanov family.
The hotel has domes, for the construction of which the architects got the idea based on the breasts of the most famous French courtesan of that time, Caroline Otero, under whose name the hotel's restaurant operated for many years.
In 1922, the first conference of the League of Nations (a meeting of the organization that was the forerunner of the UN) was held in the Carlton Hotel.
Until 1930, Cannes was a winter destination visited by the aristocracy from the north, however, in 1930, the Carlton management decided to leave the hotel open for guests during the summer, arranged a sandy beach and thus laid the foundation for summer tourism on the Cote d'Azur.
Today, on La Croisette, on those three kilometers, there are a large number of private beaches, with very high usage prices, and I'm glad that I'm in Cannes this Wednesday just for a walk and that I don't need the services of bars on the beaches.
In addition to the Carlton Hotel, along La Croisete there are many other famous buildings, hotels and private villas, as well as a large number of luxury brand shops.
In the photo above, I caught a lot of soap bubbles
Hotel Barriere Le Majestic (1926)
Hotel Splendid Cannes, the first hotel in Cannes built in 1871 in the Belle Epoque style
It is interesting that there are chairs at every step of the set list, where you can rest, make a snack and enjoy the view of the sea.
On one such break, I made this shot, a boat hiding behind the Hyde sign of a private beach.
We ended our walk around Cannes with a tour of the central streets and shops, because you should buy something for yourself in Cannes, and what kind of Serbs would we be if we didn't take a walk through RUE des SERBES, a wide boulevard that leads to the train station.
We finished #wednesdaywalk, boarded the train and drove away from Cannes.
