Cannes Can

It feels strange riding the bus in Cannes. It only costs one euro and yet you pass Prada, Gucci and Chopard stores as you pass from one end of Boulevard de la Croisette to the other. You might be seated next to a woman wearing Chanel, while across the aisle there’s a tourist in cheap trainers with a money belt around their waist.

A friend, who is from the French Riviera, told me that everyone in Cannes wears only the best brands. Even if one has no money, one still does not go without luxury when seen in public. So that might mean you eat no more than a baguette a day and live in a hovel but when you step out the front door of your hovel, you will do so with a Hermes purse carrying your pennies. This could not be more evident than in the way I am stared at when I walk down the pristine promenade that lines the ocean. Nothing covering my body cost me more than 20 pounds and most of my outfit my first day in Cannes is from Primark in London. Cold-weather clothes purchased in an emergency when I was in the UK for winter, unplanned; purchased for warmth and packability, substance over style.

Outside the Carlton Hotel there is a red MG that I would give a limb to drive. For an hour.

In the Valentino window, there is a white dress not unlike the one I once pictured wearing when I got married, in that phase of my youth when one dreamt of such things. Only this dress costs more than my entire wedding did. Never mind I’d wear it with a crown of daisies around my head. It’s very “flower power,” if luxury did the 60’s.

When I am hungry and need dinner after all my walking, I can’t find a meal worth eating for under 50 euros. Unless I want Croque-monsieur. I don’t.

All that being said, I’ve been brought to Cannes to photograph a ‘Luxury for Less’ storyline by HouseTrip and while I’m not sure if that’s possible in this playground for the rich and the fakers, I’m not one to throw in the towel without a good fight. I enjoy a challenge. So, you’ll have to stay tuned for what I find. If anyone can make that work, it’s me. After all, I live the full time travel lifestyle I do on less per year than most people make per month. Maybe I’m the perfect person to see if Cannes Can…fit almost anyone’s budget!

HouseTrip provided my *beautiful* apartment in Cannes (which I can’t wait to show you) and is paying me a fee for the #Housetripping project. However, all views and opinions in this post are my own. As is the above photo, taken with an iPhone 4S.Follow my blog with Bloglovin