I had decided a train run to Cannes was the choice for this morning and headed out of the hotel with my decent weather gear on only to find a man in a robe with a boat collecting pairs of animals along the street. Back inside and change to wet weather gear for a very wet 15 minute walk to Nice Riquier station for the 43 minute train ride. The first picture below is the scene at Riquier station. Not promising. As we passed Cagnes-sur-Mer we came out from the heaviest cloud and by the time I got to Cannes the rain had stopped. All fine. I did my mountain climbing at the start today with a climb to the Église Notre-Dame d’Espérance with its decent views of the old town and port and home to the Cannes sign, above. Very holywood. I had not spent much time in Cannes before and my impression is that people visit here for the events and visit Nice for the place. Just my impression. That said the small old town has a major street which is worth wandering along with some interesting shops (see down in the post). Unfortunately the port and large parts of the beach were construction sites, being out of season. It was a challenge avoiding diggers, trucks and cranes to capture actual Cannes. Lets start on the high ground with views including to the west to one of the two beaches and a very chilled herring gull. Hills in French towns often mean steps and Cannes has some nice ones. One of the nice locations is the Cinema painted wall by the old port.  At the east end of the port there is a lovely contrast between the worship of money or a god with the church of Notre Dame 100m from the Casino. Next to the Casino is a major exposition centre and then its along the eastern beach, a good place to eat my lunch sandwich and to look at the Carlton! One of the nice features of the construction and repair activity were fence panels celebrating movie stars through the years. I am still waiting for my Palm d’Or for my contribution to the art of movie making but the only one I got close to had a labradorite standing on it. Oh well maybe next year.