I met the ladies for breakfast again this morning. As planned I headed straight for the croissants. They did not disappoint.

Robin and I broke away from the other spouses and took the train to Antibes, a beautiful seaside town an eight minute train ride east. Buying train tickets was a tiny challenge. We were determined to use the ticket machine, which conveniently let us operate in our choice of language, and after backing out and starting over three or four times we had round trip tickets in hand. At 2 Euro 30 each way, it was the most reasonably priced thing we had purchased so far.

We explored Antibes’ charming old town, marveled at the hundreds of millions of dollars of yachts in the marina, and enjoyed the Picasso Museum. We met an American expat who, shock of shocks, was born on the east coast of the U.S. but calls Gunnison, Colorado home. We laughed about the coincidence that I am from Colorado and have had family in the Gunnison area for 80+ years. She recommended a sandwich shop and kept us company while we enjoyed our Greek wraps. We had no trouble finding our way back to the train for the short ride back to Cannes.

We ended the day with a walking tour of Cannes retracing some of the ground we had covered on Le Petite Train. Our guide pointed out the island in the distance which is now a forest but was formerly famous for the prison I mentioned before. An interesting thing the guide shared with us is the fact that aristocratic prisoners often chose to wear an iron mask when they were imprisoned in order to keep their identities a secret. So there were many men in iron masks over time, not just the one made famous by Hollywood.

A fabulous dinner at Gaston Gastounette closed the official part of the day. We enjoyed the company of two ladies working out of Singapore and a gentleman based in Switzerland but working from London. After dinner we strolled slowly back to the hotel.

19,871 steps and 15 flights of stairs later I called it a day. Lights out at 11:30.