Tuesday, October 1
I had said that one of the selling points on this hostel was that they offered a postal service in house, according to Hostelworld. First thing in the morning, i wanted to get the next round of postcards sent out, so i went to the front desk.
"No, we don't have that here."
"Hostelworld says you do."
"Well, we don't."
"Is there a post office nearby?"
"I don't know. You could try checking Google."
Well alright then.
There was one right between the hostel and the train station, and it was relatively painless to use. So that was nice.
At Gare de Nice, i quickly found my train platform, and headed for it. Instead of taking the tunnel under the tracks this time, though, i elected to go up; there's also a bridge over the platforms. It's quite high, so it's a lot more stairs than going under, which makes it a less popular choice.It gives a really nice view of all the trains running through, though, so that's cool. But also, there's a whole display of Paralympics-related art up there that was nice to browse.
The first thing i noticed was a painting of a woman controlling a horse with her teeth. Before i realized this whole exhibit was Paralympics art, i stared for a moment, thinking, "That's not at all how you steer a horse." But then i saw the signs, and realized that the woman depicted had no arms. I went through each of the paintings, but i just kept thinking about the athleticism and jaw strength that would be required to steer a horse with your teeth, good god. I don't usually pay any attention at all to the Olympics or the Paralympics, but now i kinda want to look up some coverage and see if this woman is real, or perhaps if this is representative of several people who ride this way.
Cannes is less than an hour from Nice by train. The whole route gives those nice views of the sea that i love, and also the gorgeous French countryside, with its rolling green fields and astounding mountain views.
Since it's the most important thing, and the main reason i came to the city, i decided to go see Palais des Festivals, where they hold the Cannes International Film Festival, first.
On the way, i passed a traffic sign, just a regular, round, speed limit sign, that had another sign underneath. It was octagonal, like an American stop sign, but the background was white, and it had an image of Napoleon with a French caption. Translated, it says, "Here, Napoleon returned from the island of Elba on March 2, 1815."
I kept walking, thinking, "Is it really so important to put up a sign that says, 'Napoleon was here'?"
...and then i looked to my left and saw an enormous stone carving in the side of a building, with Napoleon's name in huge letters, declaring that this was part of Route Napoleon.
I guess it is that important.
I had intended to enter Palais des Festivals and walk around for a bit, get a feel for the festival grounds, you know, do that advance scouting that i'd built significant portions of the trip around. Unfortunately, that was not to be.
The Palais was hosting The Duty Free & Travel Retail Global Summit from September 29th through October 3rd. The whole area was cordoned off, and thousands of men with sport coats but no ties, usually with douchey sunglasses, milled about beyond the gates. I saw exactly one woman.
Outside of the badge area, there were several cement handprints in the sidewalk, representing some of the guests of honor at previous years' Cannes festivals. Spike Lee, Dennis Hopper, Sidney Lumet. I found Paul Verhoeven, Sharon Stone, and Michael Douglas in a grouping together, dated 1992, so we can guess what that was from, although Julie Andrews managed to get herself in between Stone and Douglas.
I was disappointed not to get into the Palais, but i thought there would be other locations to check out; surely the Cannes festival isn't contained in a single building? This is one of the "Big 5." I searched for "Cannes film fest locations," and Google returned a couple other theaters. The next closest one was called "Festival International du Film Ecologique et Social Cannes." That sounds like the entire name of a completely different festival, but i reasoned that it might just be a documentary-focused wing of the main Cannes fest. Still seemed weird that the building would be named that, but i can find the cognitive dissonance to make this make sense. Lots of French things have very long and overly descriptive names. C'est possible.
Google fucking Maps led me to a service entrance at the cap of a dead-end street. Any pedestrian walkways i might have used to get out of this dead end were gated.
I used the map to find my own way to the other side of the building.
This is not a movie theater.
It's. Well, it might be a garden center, i'm not sure. There's a loading dock, and there's a door that says "Jardin Florian" above it, which just translates to "Florian Garden." I couldn't see anything through the windows.
So i have no idea what Google is on about, here. I had a seat on a low fence across the street while i tried to figure out what was going on, only to realize there was actual poop smeared across the sidewalk, so i moved 50 feet away, to a different low fence.
Yes, it turns out, that is the name of a whole-ass different film festival. I also checked the Cannes Festival web site, and yes, in fact, their entire festival is completely contained within the Palais. So i don't know what any of these other sites Google is coming up with are. Just random bullshit, i guess.
You remember when Google's algorithm was good, and returned useful answers from simple queries? Before we fucked it all up with SEO and generative AI? Pepperidge Farms remembers, and Tampax was there, and so do and was i.
Maybe i should eat. Haven't done that yet today.
Google Maps, which i'm still using because hit-or-miss Google Maps is still better than not having Google Maps, revealed a pretty well-reviewed mom & pop-looking place just a few blocks away, serving traditional French meals.
When i got there, i thought it looked a little fancier than i was expecting, and looking over the menu of the day, i didn't really see anything that appealed to me. It was gonna be steaks and such, and i just didn't have it in me to want that in me in that moment.
Across the street, though, was La Panina d'Isa (literally Isa's Bread), a cute little panini shop and micro-bakery. A panini sounded more like what i was in the mood for.
The sole operator of the place, whom i'm assuming is Isa, since the main photo on Maps is this woman standing in front of the shop, greeted me and began pointing to the menu boards, explaining each item in French. I was able to follow everything she said. I ordered the chèvre, a sandwich with goat cheese, mozzarella, pesto, and tomatoes.
There was a sign on the counter that said "No table service," but when i tried to hand her my card, she said, "You pay when you're done. Maybe you'll want a cookie?" I laughed and agreed, and when i continued standing there, she said, "You can go sit. I'll bring it out."
God damn that was a good panini. Hit the spot exactly.
And, of course, i did get that cookie.
Looking at points of interest on Maps, there were several movie-related murals painted all across the city, many of which were between La Panina d'Isa and Gare de Cannes. I thought about scavenger hunting a bunch of them, might be cool, but it wasn't the most exciting idea.
There is exactly one item on Atlas Obscura for Cannes. Île Sainte-Marguerite is an island not far offshore in the Bay of Cannes, which includes Fort Royal, the prison where The Man in the Iron Mask was held captive for 11 years, before transferring to the Bastille in Paris, where he died.
From the restaurant, it should take 41 minutes to get there, which includes a 15-minute ferry ride. I was physically closer to the island where i stood, but the dock was, unfortunately, over a mile away.
This was the only other thing i was finding in Cannes that appealed to me. It was described as a "day trip" in the tourist information, though, so i was hesitant. I was starting to think it might be more worth my while to leave Cannes early, and have time to see a little of Marseille this afternoon, rather than just using the city as a convenient bedroom.
I thought i'd go ahead and walk to the port anyway, just to see if i could get a look at the island, and then i would decide.
I got to the port area, and kept walking toward where i thought the shore would be. I passed through two separate areas which seemed like i should have needed a ticket to proceed, but no one stopped me or said anything. When i got to the dock, the ferries were much smaller boats than i expected. They looked more like an upper class person's recreational boat. Not a yacht, but the kind of thing you could spend a few days on, if boating was your thing.
The island was further off in the distance than i expected, but also much larger than i thought it would be. I walked along the dock, passing many of these boats, and exited from a different spot than i'd entered, well away from the ticket counter. There's also an artificial spit leading out into the bay, called Estaquade, which terminates at a lighthouse and a helipad. I walked out there, as far as i could before hitting a locked gate, and gazed out at the water.
It was here that i overheard a woman talking about how she waited three hours to get into the Fort once she was on the island.
Yeah. I'm gonna skip this.
I walked back to the mainland and looked for directions. I typed in, "Cannes train station," knowing that there's just the one. Google said it was an hour to walk, or 25 minutes by bus.
I wanted to get on a train to Marseille at 13:59. It was 13:10. Looks like i'm taking the bus.
I really didn't think it should be that far to the train station, though. From the sandwich shop to here, i'd walked back the way i originally came, so the station should be right between the two points? I didn't investigate it further, though, i just assumed i'd gotten my directions turned around. I walked over to the bus stop.
Arriving at the bus stop, though, i realized that i was looking at the map wrong; the bus is going the other way. Oh, that's silly! I almost went the wrong direction! I'll just cross the road here.
Huh. Wait, why is the bus going west? I swear the train station has to be east from here.
I got on the bus. It went back toward the shore i'd just come from, then turned right, and got onto a highway. Beautiful views of the bay, the whole time.
My brain kept nagging at me that something was wrong, but i trusted Google Maps. I have to trust it, because i have no other choice, right? I don't know where the hell i am.
It had me get off at a stop along this seaside highway. This seemed wrong also, i was pretty sure that i'd come into a station inland, but the train tracks were there. There were many lines that seemed to be leading to a common point.
They're all behind a tall fence, though. How do i get to the actual station from here?
The directions Maps was giving me on the ground weren't making sense.
I found a tunnel under the tracks, and took it. The tunnel couldn't have been more than six feet high in the center, i barely fit. A mural of many undersea creatures covered its entire length, which was nice. When i emerged on the other side, there was a dedication written above the opening. "20 000 Lieues Sous les Mers, Un film de Richard Fleisher, Walt Disney productions, 1954."
Interesting choice.
Alright. Where the fuck am i? There's fences up around the train tracks here, too. There's a gate leading in to them, but it looks industrial and it's padlocked.
I kept staring at my phone, almost spinning in circles, trying to get that god damn blue arrow to point in a useful direction. Two men nearby were having a loud French conversation. I was just about to enter an open gate, which didn't seem like it would go where i wanted it to but also seemed like the only option, when i thought i heard one of them say "train station."
"Train station?" i said, making eye contact with one.
"What?"
"I'm sorry, i thought i heard you say 'train station,'" i said. "Um. Do you know how i can get there?"
"Oh, yeah, go back through this tunnel, turn left, and it's like 500 meters..."
Are you kidding me.
He kept going on, i was trying to follow, and then he said, "You're going to Cannes?"
And me, thinking i was already in Cannes, said, "I'm going to Marseille."
"Oh! Then you want the other station. Go this way-" He pointed down the street, the direction away from the tunnel. "-and turn left, go about 50 meters, there's a bus stop. That bus will take you to the right station."
"Thank you so much!" i said, and headed toward that bus.
I checked it on Maps. That bus was going to take another twenty minutes, if i made it on the next run.
The bus would get me to Gare de Cannes at 14:01. Two minutes too late to catch that train.
The next train to Marseille wouldn't be until 16:03.
I was livid.
Fucking Google Maps. What god damn train station were you taking me to? Cannes la Bocca?? Why does "Cannes train station" turn into "Cannes la Bocca" in your app instead of "Gare de Cannes," which is the literal translation of "Cannes train station???" Did i say "la Bocca" at any point??
Gare de Cannes is listed on Google Maps as, simply, "Cannes." It does not give any indication that it is a train station, or a gare, at all. Just, "Cannes." Which is stupid.
Maps has given me minor inconveniences before, but in the moment, this felt like a major fuckup.
And of course i was angry at Maps for leading me astray, but mostly i was angry at myself, for ignoring my intuition and ignoring all those alarms that were telling me that i was going the wrong way and ignoring the common sense to double check when i could have at any point. If i had chosen to walk to the station, i would've figured out pretty damn quick that it was taking me the wrong way, and i would've course-corrected. I could've checked my Garmin data to see the precise point on the map where i'd started my walk. There were so many ways this could have been avoided.
Well. It looks like i'm gonna have two more hours in Cannes. I guess i could walk around and see those murals?
The bus pulled into Gare de Cannes four minutes early.
Maybe.
Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe.
I took off. I pulled up the Eurail app and quickly found my train's ID number. I spotted it on the departure monitor on the flyby, track 2.
Track 2 is right up agains the station, the first track you come to as you walk out to the platforms. The station is only like twenty meters wide, it takes five seconds to get from the main entrance to platform 2.
Holy fucking shit.
I made it. The train wasn't even there yet.
I made it.
Despite everything.
And minutes later, i was on the way to Marseille.
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