Yep, we’re on the Riviera – and judging from the names on the stores, you can definitely tell that this is not the redneck Riviera! Everyone that is anyone in the fashion industry is represented here within 500 yards of our hotel. Of course, Greg spotted a really cool pair of funky shoes on our very first stroll – but we would have had to decide between them, or paying the electricity bill this month… ouch!

In a nod to Stef herself, we’re staying in the Palais Stephanie this week, which is located directly on the promenade, halfway down the beach. It was renovated last year and our room is nicely furnished and spacious by European standards. This is partially due to the fact that we have a bay window, from which we can see the water even though we’re on the side of the hotel. Other rooms have balconies which would definitely have been nice, but oh well. The only complaint with our room is that the shower stall leaks – Greg’s first shower was enough to soak both of the floor towels – so we’ve decided to use the shower in the tub instead.

As is always the case after crossing the Atlantic, our first dilema was whether or not to sleep. We decided that we would try to stay up and headed out to walk along the beach promenade. There is really not much “open” beach in Cannes. The public areas are sequestered at either end of the promenade – everything else is sectioned off and “private”. In other words, you have to book chairs (or a table) to sit/lay on the beach. Many of the sections are owned or run by the hotels which they are in front of. They also have restaurants and bars that can be very loud. We’ve not yet checked into the cost of “chair rentals”, but plan on doing so before we leave.

After walking down the beach and admiring the millions of dollars floating in the Marina, we made our way down what our taxi driver called “a woman’s paradise” (the main shopping street a few blocks behind our hotel). It’s a bit more diverse than the promenade, with shops that mere mortals can actually afford to browse. We didn’t do any browsing, however, as our stomachs were beginning to complain.

Unfortunately, in Cannes, restaurants don’t open until 7pm, which we discovered when we stopped at a little Italian trattatoria called La Libera that “looked” open. (Yes, we’re in France, but our stomachs had set their hearts on Italian.) Thankfully they let us sit at a street side table to wait the half an hour until they opened.

We also discovered that, being so close to Italy, the food was authentic and amazingly good. The total damage for two, including a moderately priced (25 Euro) bottle of wine came to 85 Euros – however we didn’t have dessert.