Cannes

What to say? Still deeply affected by Stendhal’s I decided that some therapy of the retail variety was urgently required to balance the cultural overload.  Cannes (pronounced Can) is a small French town, in France, sitting on the French Riviera. It was a Greek Trading Post conquered by the Romans and then by the British. It is infamous for its nearness to the sovereign state of Monaco, Nice, Saint Tropez and Saint Raphael.  

Having been ejected from the Burj Hotel in Dubai for being under-dressed (Target was not one of their accepted labels) I donned smart casual French linen pants and shirt and headed for the Casino of Monaco. It is true that the cars around the casino are the very best of the best parked as casually as if in a Kmart parking lot. The lower end of the betting limits on baccarat tables would pay for a meal at Rockpool in Sydney. I bought in at the lower end for two hundred Euro and left two hours later with seven hundred Euro.  Don’t say it, I am not a gambler and Lady Luck was with me, I met her in the catacombs in Rome.

 I wasn’t the only high roller in town either. When I got back to the ship, Frank Lowy dropped in and had anchored the fifth largest super yacht in the world, Ilona, alongside. Not one church or temple or Roman edifice was to be seen; my Stendhal’s symptoms are beginning to fade.