Katy in Cannes-Oh my!

We shoved off from Barcelona and guess what! 80 knot winds (hurricane force) and 12-14 foot swells...wheeeee! The ship was pitching and rolling, people were staggering around heading for their cabins and we of stout Viking blood were eating pasta in the Italian restaurant on board. The bartender in the restaurant was taking the bottles down from behind the bar and stowing them away so they wouldn't fly off the shelves. When we finished and came up to our cabin (we are on deck 11 and there are 14 decks in all) the spray from the the ship plowing through the waves reached all the way to our balcony...Greg stayed out for a quickie exfoliation and Katy and I retreated to bed. We all slept like logs.

Cannes is as it looks in the pictures of the film festival. It is a picturesque town made up mostly of beachfront and shops/hotels and beach like apartments. We had to anchor off shore and come in on tenders (actually the lifeboats from the ship) which was quite an operation. It took forever as there was a shortage of pier space to land the tenders or something. We finally got off and spent two hours walking around up to the castle, down again through the walking street selling everything one could possibly want on a beach holiday. We did find a store that sold olive oil so we bought some! Stopped for lunch...Katy had tomatoe with mozzarella (again), Greg had sole in a lime sauce with potato and carrot and I had salad Nicoise (what else would one have in the south of France). Of course the food was delectable...it is France after all. We walked along the beachfront because Katy wanted to layout and get a head start on skin cancer (didn't we all) but she was put off by the number of people and the number of tops optional (and I don't mean the men). In actual fact, there were not that many topless women sunbathing and most of them were "old", like over 40, but Katy decided she didn't really like Cannes that much and was ready to go. Having seen most of everything, we jumped back into the tender and motored back to the ship. Oh, did I mention the rough seas and slamming into the landing platform at the ship right when it was Aunt Becky's turn to step out? Luckily the Viking blood came through, and not only did she keep her balance but she helped one of the crew stay on his feet. HAH!