French Riviera Travel News

The Cannes Film Festival has just announced that director Tim Burton will be Jury President for the 63rd Cannes Film Festival to be held from May 12to 23.
Upon accepting the invitation from Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux, Tim Burton declared
“After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie marathons, I’m finally ready for this. It’s a great honour
and I look forward, with my fellow jurors,
to watching some great films from around the world. When you think of Cannes you think of world cinema. And as films have always been like dreams to me, this is a dream come true.

Read more about the Cannes Film Festival.

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When the weather is as splendid as it has been Nice this Indian Summer, one is tempted to head to an outdoor restaurant to enjoy the burning blue sky. By opting for Don Camillo Creations we clearly prioritized the palate and we weren’t sorry. The €24 lunch menu offered excellent value as it included three courses.

Regular readers of this blog know that one of my pet peeves is snobby chefs that refuse to provide a filling meal. Oh, everything is artfully arranged, but where’s the food?

There was no problem with that at Don Camillo. The entreé was foie gras de canard, a real luxury item. OK, I don’t eat foie gras but the side salad of teeny veggies and small greens was delicious and the waiter was nice enough to give me extra as I sent the foie gras over to John. He did an excellent job of masking his dismay at my rejection and I was careful to extravagantly praise the salad dressing which hinted at sesame and citrus. The main course was chunks of St Pierre fish, another luxury item, served over humble but elegant fresh coco beans. The fish had a thin glaze on one side and was meltingly tender underneath. The light sauce was buttery and herb-scented. Dessert was a poached pear over an ice cream of very intense chocolate and something the waiter said was “macchia”. What is it? Help me out!

Washed down with a glass of excellent white wine and accompanied by amazing little rosemary rolls, the lunch was light but intensely satisfying. I liked that chef Marc Laville decided to offer three courses on his lunch menu rather than following the usual tendancy of offering two courses and an amuse-bouche.

Now, if only he would put a few tables on the beach.

See more on Nice restaurants.

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Once again, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of food at a Nice beach restaurant. My dining companion complained of a bad stomach after eating at our usual place (which shall remain nameless) so we decided to try Bambou Beach Restaurant in front of  Lenval Hospital.

As is now typical of beach restaurants, the waiter insisted on speaking English in spite of our best efforts to converse in French. (We’re not tourists, see!). The restaurant bills itself as Specialites de Poissons so we went with the flow and chose the special cold seafood platter. The waiter assured us all was fresh and it was. The platter teemed with mussels, coquilles St-Jacques, shrimp, mussels, octopus and several very large prawns. It was served over a bed of salad greens, tomatoes and yellow squash.

It took us about an hour to get through it all (OK, there was a lot of chatting in between bites) and we were both pleasantly surprised by the quality and the quantity. At €16, we considered it excellent value for money.

Reservations are normally not necessary at Bambou Beach restaurant (tel 04 93 86 64 15; 165 Promenade des Anglais) which is open June to September. There’s only a lunch service but drinks are served all day on the beach.

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The Roya river is known for its swift waters as it races through Breil-sur-Roya. River rafters, canoers, kayakers gravitate here in the summer to test their river paddling skills in the cold, frothy water. Despite regular sojourns here over the last five years, I’ve never tried it–until yesterday!

Saturday in August is not the time to contemplate the stillness of the steep riverbanks but the crowd of helmeted river-rats seemed reassuring to me. They wouldn’t let me drown, would they? Plus, our group of canoe-rafters was managed by the highly competent local company, Roya Evasion. Our guide was a world champion of something river-y. Too bad he’s now tumbled so far as to have to manage the likes of numbnuts like me.

I’d paddled kayaks in lakes and swum in rivers but somehow this business of manoevring a rubbery blob down a roiling river defeated me. We started about 4km upstream and, unfortunately for beginners like me, it was not in a calm part of the river. I didn’t quite understand how to actually steer the thing so my 11-year-old boatmate and I immediately became wedged between two rocks causing other rafts to crash into us. One of the monitors hurried over and dislodged us, then recommended that he be with an experienced adult. Good thinking.

I got my own kayak and nervously set forth into the whitewater. I managed to hit the rapids backwards, then sideways and then underwater with the kayak overturned above me. I slid down the river for a while trying to grab hold of the thing until finally we came to rest along the banks. The alert monitor paddled over and urged me onto his kayak, giving mine to a little girl who looked a lot less spooked than I was. I felt a little bad for sending the kid into the river on her own but, hey, in the whitewater it’s every dame for herself.

With the monitor doing all the steering, I was finally free to actually enjoy the experience and smirk at all the other incompetents sliding off their kayaks, paddling into rocks and trying to keep a game face about it all. The descent lasted about 1 1/2 hours and was absolutely thrilling. Would I do it again? Hell, yes. If they let me.

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One of the most popular trains on the French Riviera is the Train des Pignes that takes passengers through the hills and mountains from Nice to Digne-les-Bains.  It’s a gorgeous trip but it looks as though the train has become a victim of its own popularity.

From June until mid-August the train carried over 130,000 passengers, far more than desirable for a vacation experience. There are only 96 seats which means that many summer trains carry plenty of standees.  Last week the overload was so great that some passengers had to be brought back to Nice in a bus.

The good news is that another train car is on order and should be delivered at the end of the summer with four more ready to roll next summer. Meanwhile, here’s a tip: avoid the early 8.50am departure which tends to be the most crowded.

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