A short business trip to Cannes
A while ago, I was on a short business trip to Cannes to help install our digital video proposition at the Warner booth for the mipcom event. I drove to Cannes with a colleague on Friday, we helped setting up the stuff on Saturday and flew back home on Sunday evening. That's the management summary, read on for the full report!
On Friday morning, I got up at five o'clock and was on my way to pick up my colleague and co-driver Marcel. The Pilot's watch UTC was my choice for the driving part, with the Pisa safely in a watch pouch in the luggage.
We left with horrible weather in the Netherlands, as shown here in a picture sent to us from the office while we just entered France:
Fortunately for us, the weather was much better and the previsions for Cannes were even better:
Here are a few shots from our drive on the Route du Soleil:
Chateauneuf:
A quick stop to fuel up and a driver-change:
Then we had a nice drive along the river Rhone:
Exactly twelve hours after the start:
We still had more than 260 km to go:
Here are a few shots taken from the car while passing a monastery built on top of a ridge:
At 21:15 we finally arrived after 1471 km:
Since all hotels were completely booked, we had to take refuge in a luxuous villa for 8 persons in the hills overlooking Cannes.
We quickly discarded the idea of going out that night and went to bed right after unpacking. The next morning we had a quick look around the villa and the surroundings. Breakfast was arranged for, quite convenient!
After breakfast, we went to the pier to unload our equipment. Last year, I was able to talk my way into without a registration form for the car, this year security was less lenient and we had to go around the harbour to get our clearance to unload.
Here are a few pics from the beach early in the morning:
The Marina with some rather impressive yachts:
Since we didn't need much time or space to unload, we were allowed on the premises in less than 15 minutes. There were some big trucks who were in for a much longer wait!
Soon after unloading, we could start setting up the equipment. Here we are already configuring an Apple TV, of which we brought nine:
When you are in Cannes, you don't just bring your sandwich for a lunch on site, you enjoy the good life and go to a beach restaurant:
My two other colleagues Stef and Michael that flew in on Saturday morning:
My co-driver Marcel:
What can I say, two watches. That can only be me!
Some food shots:
After lunch, I told the other guys that there was an IWC shop on La Croisette and that I would join them later after my visit there. So here the interesting part for us collectors starts!
I took this wrist shot in the garden of Hotel Majestic Barriere. Their pier was hosting part of the Warner brothers stand for the mipcom event. Quite a spectacular venue!
There were a few guards at the entrance of arije, but probably I looked innocent enough to be let into the store. I was welcomed by a charming sales lady named Amelle. I immediately noticed a wonderful blue dial golden Tourbillon rétrograde in one of the showcases and I quickly held this beauty in my hands:
We chatted a bit about IWC in general and the low number of IWC stores in France and then I noticed that they also had a Minute Repeater in store! Needless to say, I had to try that on my wrist:
I was truely impressed by this magnificent piece. It's so classic and understated yet it has a certain aura that can't be captured in pictures!
here is a blurry picture of the Minute Repeater, the blue dial Tourbillon and my Pisa Perpetual:
Amelle told me they also have a little IWC shop in the Carlton hotel but that it's only used during Summer. She told me however that they have a limited edition Portuguese Automatic on display. After Amelle gave me two watch magazines and a beautiful book called 'Grand Complications vol. VIII', I went to the Carlton and took a few pictures from the display case there:
I then headed back to the Warner stand:
At 18:00 we went back to our villa and went to buy some groceries. Then we noticed these orange and purple cauliflowers!
We weren't planning on cooking though, so we just got some drinks, chips, snacks and stuff.
Since Michael and Stef flew in and went directly to the Warner stand that morning, they hadn't seen the villa yet. They also were pleasantly surprised. The villa has four bedrooms with two beds each and three bathrooms in total.
After unpacking and looking around a bit, we went back to Cannes for dinner. We had a beautiful ride through the hillside where we had a nice view over Cannes:
We parked near the port and there we also had a lovely view of Cannes by night:
Michael knew a nice restaurant where he had been during the previous visit to Cannes, Le Maschou. It's a very cosy restaurant with a very limited choice but the quality and ambiance make up for that. We were lucky that there was a free table, in less than 10 minutes after we were seated, every place was occupied!
For starters we had grilled bread with different dressings and then a lovely dried ham with melon. The choice of the main course was either grilled chicken, steak or lamb chops. The dessert was a delicous home made chocolate mousse. I am the only one who drinks wine and this Bordeaux Supérieur was great with the lamb chops I had.
For me, a dessert isn't complete without Espresso and a good cognag :-)
After dinner we went for a stroll through Cannes and saw this beautiful display of Louis Vuiton:
There were plenty of beautiful cars too, one of them was this Audi R8 with V10 engine:
In the parking, we noticed something funny. Watch closely what's on the door and what's behind:
The next morning, we headed back to the Mipcom terrain to continue fixing some Wifi issues we discovered at the end of Saturday. Here I am with my idol, Anna Torv, from the series Fringe:
After the bottle of Bordeaux, the cognac and some rosé we still had in the villa, I wasn't doing quite as well as I would have hoped so for lunch I just had this 'tiny' Salad Nicoise:
The others enjoyed their starters and main dishes, the hamburgers do look good don't they?
After lunch, my job was done so I enjoyed the view from the beach and I took a few more shots from the Warner booth.
Well after six o'clock, everything was finished and we had still some time to spare so we had a walk along the Marina. I really liked the color of these clouds, too bad it's so hard to capture in a picture:
After a drink (I took a healthy smoothie with lots of fruit ;-) Stef drove Marcel and me to the Nice airport. There we found out that our flight was delayed a bit but it wasn't too much.
We had our seats at the emergency exit, thus plenty of leg space! The plane was a Boeing 737-800 and it was completely booked. This lead to some hilarious moments when everybody tried to get their hand luggage in the overhead storage space. Finally, we left more than half an hour too late and we had headwind too, resulting in a longer flight home.
Michael left his BMW at the Schiphol airport for me to use during the week he and Stef were still in Cannes with my Volvo.
Marcel and I left Schiphol Airport at around one o'clock and after I dropped him off at home I still had a little drive. I finally arrived home at almost 2 o'clock and immediately fell asleep.
Unfortunately, this didn't work out exactly as planned. I had just put the kids off at school two minutes before when I was hit by a car who had completely overlooked me!
Fortunately, nobody got injured and as another friend said, it wasn't even my own car! Michael was less happy though, his BMW was just 3 months old! Michael and Stef drove back on Friday and they had a safe trip. The BMW is repaired already and the accident is just a memory now.
Kind regards,
Clemens
