5-20-10 Cagnes-sur-Mer to Cannes Bocca day 46

5-20-10 Cagnes-sur-Mer to Cannes Bocca day 46

the evening before I had moved away from the water in order to find cheaper lodging... tourist offices have been warning me about the artificial inflation currently all around because of the Cannes Film Festival and also it is the start of the high season... so now I walked back down towards the water and along it to get to Cannes and hopefully through it... in one day... the sun was warm but along the water there was a nice breeze... the beaches in this area are all pebble... but there seem to be more free beaches than italy... still there are plenty of restaurants with rentable lounge chairs on the beach. I passed a chinese thai restaurant that looked more like a buddhist temple from the outside than a place that served food.. it was funny to see such familiar sight here in france... I took photos... then I would see another restaurant with some buddhas as logos...

by the end of the day i'd seen a number of buddhas and not so much churches... in Antibes I got indian at a semi-fast-food place.... here again the woman was curious about me and talked to me, I found out she was from Goa, I had kind of suspected from the food that it was more southern indian since it was spicier... she was pleased to hear that i'd been to Goa and that I intended to return to india fairly soon since I liked it...she had three boys and was proud to tell me that they spoke french, english goan-hindi, and a language that sounds like candia or some such and is the language of Karnathaka, the neighboring state to Goa... she was kind of shy and curious..and sweet.. I was extra delighted because they offered spicy chutneys with the meal...
then I stopped at tourist office because I did not want to make the mistake of taking the long way again since there was another peninsula.. the girl there was concerned that I would want to walk to Cannes, 'it is really far away'... I thought since i'd been using crappy maps she meant 30km but when she said 12km I was relieved I could do that still... then I stopped finally and got a good map at a book store.. I was a bit uncertain what region I needed but I showed him the list of towns I had jotted down from the internet and he gave me a map... when I had a chance to study it later.. I could have gone back and kissed him... not only was it exactly what I needed it started around St Raphael and continued west, but it also was a map in very good scale for a walker... again I got this sense that French over-all have a better understanding of what I am doing since they themselves do 'hike in the mountains' and in general they go on adventures etc.. he saw things from my perspective... then back to current path,I realized I was going off the mark so I asked a man at a shop, direction Cannes, he showed me and then too told me, 'but it is very far away, 10kms!'they are all making me feel so tough! Ha ha... on I went... I arrived in Cannes around 4pm, there was a lovely garden along the water, Cannes was urban and had little beach to speak of, but where there was it was crowded with sunbathers... the more I walked along the beach front the thicker the crowd started getting... I was arriving in the middle of the festival...

in-between ordinary people there were men both wearing journalist tags and hobbyist, I am guessing, with giant weapon like cameras and even video and sound equipment... also there were young women weaving through the crowds who looked like models and model wanna be's dressed to the nines, in un-sensible but femmie shoes... I speculate some where young actresses perhaps hoping to be discovered... there was some crowd control barriers so it was a bit confusing to walk through, it was entertaining and sometimes a bit annoying as I tried to walk through Cannes... there were some crowds forming outside a few hotels.. again I assume they were waiting for the famous to emerge... it took very long to finish walking through Cannes ...even water was inflated here... .i was tired and my hopes of finding cheap lodging slim... the rail line went towards the beach pushing buildings inland so I took an inner road trying to find anything including camping signs... I went on a fools errand following a sign up into the hills... I walked at least 2kms up...realized that there was nothing... then found another road leading back down... there went another hour of non-forward walking and no hotel... then eventually I did arrive into Cannes Bocca, not a large town... I saw one two star mega hotel and hoped.. but no... price gauging... it was 7.30 and I was done... so I pretended that this was somehow in my budget... trying to ignor the chiseling sounds as the end of my trip was being chiseled away at..meaning I would not travel perhaps as long is I liked since the way I was doing this pilgrimage in general was way over budget... but once I was in my dark room with austrian tv... I was relieved... I went down the road after shower and picked up some cheap chinese take away food... food at least seems a lot cheaper here than in italy and there is more choice...then I went back to my room... woofed down my food while watching 'Asterix and Obelix meets Cleopatra' on austrian tv... it's based on a european comic book that I grew up with so even though it was very silly I thoroughly enjoyed it... I again slept better than I had in a while...