More than a festival: colourful Cannes
May 21st 2006 23:00
Bonjour tout le monde!
(Hello everyone)
Well, as promised at the end of last week, we’re moving on to another area of France today. I planned to move on to another vibrant city, but first I thought I’d make a stop-over in a place making headlines at the moment: Cannes.
The Cannes Film Festival is on at the moment and began last Thursday with the premiere of the Da Vinci Code. (You can read my thoughts on Da Vinci Code tourism here and here.) The festival itself continues until this Sunday 28th May (just in case anyone wants to pop over and check it out.)
Da Vinci's first viewing at Cannes (pic on CBS website from AP)
The festival started as a “post-war” cultural event in the Cannes Casino. It began on 20th September 1946 and was originally called the International Film Festival (or in French Le Festival Internationale du Film). The festival has run every year since except 1948, 1950 and 1968, where they were cancelled because there wasn’t enough money and in 1968, due to political problems. Today, it has become one of the best (and most famous) international film festivals. It is a world-class competition and attracts some of the biggest names in the business.
The Festival has a website at www.festival-cannes.fr. The dates are already up for next year’s event. The 60th Cannes Film Festival will commence on the 16th May and end on the 27th May, so start planning!!
However, the city of Cannes has so many more attractions than the film festival once a year. It is a town full of life and it has a reputation of being a playground for the rich and famous, who let their hair down in the pristine environment surrounding Cannes.
According to Cannes locals, the town’s recorded history stretches back to the 2nd century BC. Ancient Greek historian Polybius wrote about the ancient town of Aegyptna, which was destroyed by the Romans. This town has been identified today as ancient Cannes. I was shocked to find during my research that the city has an official website and one section goes through its history from Polybius to our era. If you’re interested the link is www.cannes.fr. This site also has lots of useful information about EVERYTHING. There are links to practical information (but that’s all in French), the best places for bargains and exposés on Cannes’ social scene.
A view of Cannes (from cucinatestarossa.blogs.com)
If you have any more questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to find out the answers for you.
We leave Cannes today and move on to another great town tomorrow.
See you then
À demain
Melinda
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