Lérins excursions, Suquet strolls, palace spas, water sports, the Festival. The notebook of Cannes activities for 24 hours, a weekend or a whole week.
Six picks that actually entertain a six-year-old without ruining a parent's afternoon. Tested, ranked, what we'd skip.
Sunset cliffs, monastery wine, candlelit five-table dinner. Six moments to plan a weekend around.
Boat half-day, fruits de mer at Astoux, bar-hop in the Suquet. What works for a group of 6-10.
Paddle, jet-ski, Estérel cliffs, kayak, rue Meynadier. Six things 11-17s actually want to do.
A 48-hour plan: Forville market, Lérins ferry, Carlton rooftop, Astoux. Hour by hour, no nightclub.
6pm apéro at La Bocca to a midnight Croisette walk. The honest after-work and after-dinner rhythm.
Spa, museum, cinema, long lunch. The locals' rainy-day moves: often better than the sunny version.
Empty Croisette, half-price palaces, Mougins afternoons, Sainte-Marguerite in February. The underrated season.
Seven group activities to fit around a conference, from the Lérins Islands to a perfume workshop in Grasse. Prices collected in 2026, and what we would skip.
A rhythm for a day alone, where to eat without feeling in the way, outings priced for one person and practical safety pointers.
Boat with a skipper, booked beach, perfume in Grasse, a table for twelve: the hen or stag weekend that works, and what annoys residents.
July and August by the clock: which beach and when, shade at noon, the six firework nights and free open-air cinema.
The walking itinerary for anyone arriving by train, cruise tender or from Nice: market, Le Suquet, Old Port, the steps and the Croisette.
The year-round two-day guide: how to arrive, where to sleep, one day for the town and one for a Lérins island.
Walks, public beaches, museums and their free days, markets, viewpoints and fireworks: what costs nothing, with days and hours.
Statues under the sea, the terraced Grand Jas cemetery, a villa open twelve Saturdays a year, a Russian church: seven real visits, almost all free.
Four municipal venues at €6.50 or less, a season of more than seventy shows, four stages. What you can visit, what you need to book, and what is closed when you arrive.
An 80-hectare forest in town, a loop around an island, and the Estérel less than 25 minutes away by train. Six outings ranked by effort, with distances, summer closures and what we'd skip.
Paddleboarding, kayaking, parasailing, jet-skiing: the 2026 prices noted from the operators, where it really happens, and what 'no licence' actually means.
Seven spas and hammams open to non-residents, from five-star hotel spas to a traditional hammam. What they contain, hours, and prices recorded in 2026.
Three rooftops, two palace bars, two pubs, Le Suquet and Port Canto. Where to have an aperitif and start the evening, with hours and prices recorded in 2026.
Five clubs whose activity is attested in 2026, plus the casino. Where they are, when they really open, what a table costs and how to get home.
Three casinos are open in 2026: Barrière Le Croisette, Partouche 50 Croisette and Royal Palm at the Palm Beach. Addresses, hours, ID rules, dress code and games.
Indoor electric karting, 24 bowling lanes and two municipal tennis clubs in Cannes, plus four golf courses in Mandelieu and Mougins. Verified addresses, hours and 2026 prices.
Six Jason deCaires Taylor statues off Sainte-Marguerite, 3 to 5 metres deep and free to visit. How to get there, where to snorkel and which dive clubs we verified.
The Forville, Gambetta and La Bocca markets with verified hours, two cooking workshops we could confirm near Cannes, and the wines of the Lérins monks.
Seven minutes by train: a walled old town, a Picasso museum where he actually painted, a morning market. The easy day out.
Seventeen minutes by train: the world's perfume capital, three historic houses, a museum most visitors skip. The half-day, done right.
One of the Riviera's great coastal walks, a fine-sand beach, a botanical garden, a palace you admire from the path.
A perched village of galleries and cypresses, a new women-artists museum, a lotus pond, where Picasso ended his days.
Ten minutes by train: real sand, umbrella pines, a seafront promenade and Europe's oldest jazz festival. The summer day we'd take.
Ten minutes above Cannes: the world's only Bonnard museum, a quiet old town with a Tobiasse chapel, the postcard view over the bay.
Fifteen minutes east: the pottery town Picasso adopted, his War and Peace chapel, a ceramics museum, and the seaside where Napoleon landed in 1815.
Twenty minutes west: a seafront castle and listed gardens, two marinas, mimosa-yellow hills in winter, the doorway to the red Estérel.
Twenty minutes west, where the coast turns red: a rock park, hidden calanques, kayaking, Estérel trails and a great corniche drive.
Twenty-seven minutes by train: Vieux Nice, the Cours Saleya market, Castle Hill, the Promenade des Anglais and a Matisse museum. The car-free city day.
Renoir's house and olive grove at Les Collettes, the medieval hill village of Haut-de-Cagnes and its Château-Musée Grimaldi. The art-and-stone half-day.
Twenty minutes inland: a rare grid-plan village from 1519, the arcaded Place des Arcades, a Friday Provençal market and walks along the Brague.
The great artists' village: the Fondation Maeght's modern-art collection, 16th-century ramparts, Chagall's grave and the art-filled Colombe d'Or.
An hour east by train: the medieval Rock, the cliff-set Oceanographic Museum, the belle-époque Casino square and the Grand Prix harbour.
Fifteen minutes out of the Vieux Port: wild Sainte-Marguerite with its Man-in-the-Iron-Mask fort, and Saint-Honorat where monks still make wine. The boat day.
The Matisse chapel he designed top to bottom, a walled old town, France's smallest cathedral: paired with Saint-Paul-de-Vence ten minutes away. Mind: no train.
The far end of the Riviera at the Italian border: the Serre de la Madone and Val Rahmeh gardens, a Ligurian old town and the lemon-sculpture Fête du Citron.
The eagle's-nest village 400m above the sea: the exotic garden on the castle ruins, the Nietzsche path up from the coast and Fragonard. Beautiful off-peak.
A working craft town: glassblowers at the furnace, the bubbled glass Biot invented, a glass écomuseum and the largest Fernand Léger collection in France.
One of the deepest harbours on the coast: ochre houses tumbling to the water, Cocteau's frescoed chapel, the medieval Rue Obscure and a free citadel.
The Riviera's ritziest peninsula: the rose-pink Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and its nine gardens, a wild coastal path and the Paloma and Passable beaches.
Half an hour west: Roman Forum Julii with its amphitheatre and early-Christian cathedral close, a belle-époque resort and the red rock of the Estérel.
The Riviera's biggest name across the bay: the port, the Annonciade museum, the citadel, the Place des Lices market and the coastal path. By boat, not by car.
Villa Kérylos, a recreated ancient-Greek house from the 1900s, the sheltered Petite Afrique microclimate and the gentle coastal walk to Cap Ferrat. Train at the door.
A stone eyrie on a cliff at 760m above the Gorges du Loup: one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, its panorama, château and the spectacular gorge drive up.
The city of violets: a ring-shaped medieval old town, real artisans' studios, the violet heritage of La Bastide aux Violettes and the late-winter Fête des Violettes.
A thousand years in one place: a medieval village with one of France's oldest keeps, and Le Corbusier's Cabanon beside Eileen Gray's Villa E-1027 at Cap Moderne.
Every Thursday at 5pm, what's on this weekend in Cannes and nearby: concerts, exhibitions, pop-up events.
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