Wednesday morning we had another early start to visit a city called Cannes. Cannes is where the legend of the Man in the Iron mask originated. Nothing was actually known about the prisoner--even whether it was a man or a woman. He/she was imprisoned on an island off of Cannes called St. Marguerite in 1660 until 1690 when he was moved to the Bastille in Paris. Because prison guards were under strict orders to kill anyone who dared remove the mask there were many rumors around the prisoner's identity. Voltaire was the first person to publicly claim that the prisoner was King Louis' identical twin brother.
After our train ride to Cannes, Sarah, Navarone (one of her friends in the Nice program), and I took a small boat to the island of St. Marguerite. Mostly it was just a quaint town with old buildings and a beautiful view. We couldn't get into the museum there because it was lunch time and almost everything in France closes between 12 and 2 pm. We wandered around for a bit and walked to the "observatory"...it was like any other lake you'd see anywhere, not withstanding pond-scum. People were also hanging out at the beach with their families. It has been unseasonably cool here, according to Sarah, so some of these people were on the beach in 60 degree weather.
We returned to the mainland and saw a castle-like structure that we wanted to explore. It turned out to be another museum full of random artifacts and paintings. The coolest part of this castle was that you could climb the tallest tower and see a panoramic view of Cannes from the very top.
During our assent down the tower and through the town we also visited the alle des Etoiles du Cinema--a path of celebrity hand imprints; sort of like a smaller, more budget Hollywood.
After our return home Sarah and I relaxed, ate dinner, and then walked around Nice a little more. We ate gelatto (this time I had strawberry and nutella) from her favorite gelateria called Finoccio's and went back home to watch The Colbert Report.
No comments:
Post a Comment