The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
On the trail of stardust on the French Riviera
As the Cannes film festival marks its 70th anniversary, David Atkinson joins a tour of the sights made famous by Hollywood
Gerard Depardieu is giving me the eye. He looks down on me from one of the cinema-heritage murals that testify to the long association between Cannes, the French Riviera and the international jet set. The giant, facade-covering images form a trail around Cannes, evoking memories of the golden age of cinema and reminding us how the stars of the silver screen loom large in these parts.
A vision of how the other half lives formed part of a week-long tour of the French Riviera, organised by Travelsphere. Based in Cannes, it celebrates the evergreen glamour of the Côte d’Azur and adds a frisson of Hollywood stardust for cinephiles.
It’s a fitting moment to visit. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Cannes International Film Festival, which opened on Wednesday. A programme of events, screenings and exhibitions continues until the autumn to celebrate the long association with cinema heritage. After all, it was here that a young ingénue, Brigitte Bardot, was photographed in a crowd-shocking bikini in 1953 and the American actress Grace Kelly was introduced to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1954.
The tour route sweeps along the golden, palm-fringed coast from St Tropez to San Remo and stops at Monaco and Monte Carlo. We drove along the Boulevard des Anglais in Nice to Villefranche, where the cruise ships dock, and on to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. This dramatic clifftop drive to Monaco featured in scenes from Hitchcock’s film To Catch a Thief and adds context to the rest of the day. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant had come to Cannes for the film and Kelly met Prince Rainier of Monaco at the Carlton Hotel. They married on the eve of the 1956 film festival.
Peter Sellers also filmed The Pink Panther around here and The Rolling Stones arrived in 1971 to record Exile on Main Street. However, the narcotic haze engulfing their rambling villa may have detracted somewhat from their appreciation of the multimillion-euro views across the Riviera seascape.
Jack Nicholson described Monaco as “Alcatraz for the rich” and the tiny principality remains a tax-haven enclave for the Euro glitterati.
The pomp of the midday changing of the guard outside the Royal Palace is pure theatre but Monaco has its softer side, too. Grace Kelly’s grave in the tranquil cathedral still features fresh white roses each day at her late husband’s request – and the gardens, set on a sea-crashing rock, are alive with fragrant blooms and a bronze couple embrace by a shady lime-tree arbour.
More high-octane are preparations for next week’s Monaco Grand Prix. Racing driver Nelson Piquet compared negotiating the hairpin bends of the city-state course to “cycling around your own living room”. Maybe he was miffed that the late Ayrton Senna still holds the crown for winning the race a record six times, including five in a row.
The next day I used a free day to soak up the ambience of Cannes while the luxury shops, hotels and restaurants rolled out the red carpets for the festival that almost doubles the 70,000-strong population for two weeks each May. It was a hive of activity, with workmen installing lights on the palm trees lining the Boulevard de la Croisette, security gates outside the Palais des Festivals (where the red carpet will be changed three times daily under the pressure of designer footwear) and, somewhat incongruously, a giant poster for a new Spider-Man film obscuring the facade of the Carlton Hotel.
The weekly Friday afternoon walking tour of Cannes, starting from outside the tourist office next to the Palais, was a fascinating stroll through history behind the myths and magazine spreads. Walking along the Croisette and up into the old town district of Le Suquet, I learnt how Cannes beat Biarritz to host the first festival, in 1946, moving to its annual May berth in 1952.
Stopping outside the town hall, the guide explained how the Palm d’Or, first awarded in 1955, was modelled on the emblem of Cannes, the palm leaf. The prize is best known for rewarding the golden greats of cinema, including Frederick Fellini for La Dolce Vita in 1960 and Martin Scorsese for Taxi Driver in 1976. Yet it was not