All beach towns are alike; each non-beach town is non-beachy in its own way.  That’s our overall impression anyway after spending a week in the Côte d’Azur.  It is also an unabashed homage to a great Russian writer whose fellow countrymen-aristocrats and their European peers used to prance around this part of France in search of a “sun cure.”  We, ourselves, were not in need of any kind of cure, really; isn’t living in Paris a cure-all?  We simply had a week off in-between classes and we wanted to go to a warm destination where we could pass lazy days on the beach. 

3 July 2008.  The maid at the Hôtel Little Palace would be forgiven for wondering what was going on in room 305.  We woke up late again today and once more rejected the offer to clean the room, this time Riot said something like, “pas aujourd'hui.” 

We paid another visit to the harborside McDonald’s before going to the beach.  (We swear we rarely, if ever, ate at this fast food chain back home.)  While we were eating our bargain fare, the same geeky Asian man/model-looking girl combo walked by, evoking stares from all around.  The sky was overcast, which made for a more pleasant afternoon; it was only in the mid-70s.  We skipped the paid beach again today because it didn’t seem sunny enough to require an umbrella.  For a little while it was an enjoyable sunbathing experience but then droplets of rain started coming down.  “Oh well,” we thought, “we’ll try again tomorrow.”

When we came back to the hotel we ran into the proprietress who appeared to have knowledge of our refusal of housekeeping for two consecutive days.  She asked us:  “Français, anglais, vietnamien?” spanning the whole spectrum of every language we dabbled in.  Nez excitedly volunteered, “He speaks vietnamien.”  That apparently pleased the lady as she came by later with an unsolicited set of fresh towels and the much-appreciated hair dryer for Nez, which Riot had requested on behalf of Nez, in Vietnamese.

We did a little shopping on rue d’Antibes but the shops closed early.  By then we were hungry again and went in search of Italian food.  We were at the eastern part of Cannes and didn’t see a lot of choices.  The first Italian restaurant we came upon didn’t have a visible menu posted so we kept walking because we were wary of unsuspecting prices.  Just down the block was a pizza joint, Mister Pizza, populated with take-out customers and delivery boys in their yellow helmets stopping in for only long enough to pick up their deliveries before revving off on their scooters.  We got ourselves a normal size pizza, salad, and sodas and made a quick picnic at the beach on a set of the many chairs strewn about the sidewalk along La Croisette.  It was as good as any meal we had had here and the view was decidedly superb.  Behind us, on the rooftop of the Palais Stephanie (rooms starting from 350€), a well-heeled crowd gathered, possibly for dinner or pre-dinner drinks, and stared out at the same Mediterranean Sea.