Villa Cote d'Azur

The Old Port and Le Suquet
The Vieux Port, with its bobbing fishing boats and plush luxury craft, is on the other side of the Palais des Festivals. Piane trees line the Allees de la Liberta, where the flower market and Saturday fleamarket take place.Two streets further back, narrow pedestrian Rue Meynadier is the best place to buy cheese (Ferme Savoyarde) and fresh pasta (Aux Bons Raviolis), nearthe sumptuous Forville covered market. Cannes' cramped old quarter, Le Suquet, rises up on the other side of the port, where the usual renovation and displacement of the not-so-rich isjust beginning. At the city's highest point,the monks of St-Honorat built the square watchtower, the Tour du Mont Chevalier, in 1088, and their priory is nowtheMusee de la Castre, a little museum at a little price, with an archaeological and ethnographic collection donated by a generous Dutch baron in 1873,containingeverythingfrom Etruscan vases to pre-Columbian art and a 40-armed Buddha.<br />
When Babylon beginsto pall.you cantake refugeon a delightful pairof green, wooded,traffic-free islets just off thecoast. Known in antiquity as Lero and Lerina.they are now named after two saints whofounded religious houseson them at the end ofthe 4th century: little St-Honorat and the larger Ile Ste-Marguerite. Take water and a picnic, forthere is only a smattering of expensive little shops and cafes on Ste-Marguerite and just one restaurant on St-Honorat