We had just enough time to take a short walk on our street before leaving Cassis this morning; it was, as always, beautiful.
Our host Denise gave us a ride to the Cassis train station (it’s about two miles out of town). If you’re looking for a place to stay in Cassis, I cannot imagine a place better than her AirBnb!
Our trip from Cassis to Toulon was fine, but soon after we got to Toulon, the whole station was evacuated to make sure that there were no bombs after they found some abandoned luggage. It was a nice day, so waiting outside wasn’t too painful, but the lack of information (especially in English) was annoying.
They let us back into the station about 45 minutes after closing it; the message boards slowly flickered back to life.
But they lied – our train arrived well before 2, and we had to scramble. We couldn’t find the car with our reserved seats, but the conductor said “just take any seat”, and we did. No one ever checked our tickets, either.
We reached Cannes 50 minutes late and walked to our modest hotel, the Hotel Carlton.
The hotel was built in 1913 by the grandson of the Czar, who’d fallen in love with a commoner, reliquished his claim to the throne, and moved to the South of France with his love. He didn’t find any suitable hotels there, so he had this one built! It has hosted some interesting conferences over the years, including the meeting which led to the organization of the League of Nations.
The service so far has been impeccable; our luggage was delivered about five minutes after we got to the room (no “hint” for a tip, either); I’m having some shirts pressed for free, and every time we turn around, there’s a new goodie in the room.
Here’s their interior garden.
We took a walk down the Boulevard de la Croisette (the beachfront boulevard) after we’d unpacked and decompressed.
We returned to the hotel for the welcome reception for our tour, followed by a three-course dinner.
We have to be in the lecture room at 8:45am, ready to go for the day’s touring. It’s going to be a rough week. :-)