Le Cannet

Today I saw for the first time Le Cannet, where Bonnard painted in a particularly productive period. Once a village composed of market gardeners and orchard growers, it is now part of the concrete jungle that has invaded the coast.

Leaving the museum for a rainy day, we went looking for the views that Bonnard painted: aided and abetted by a map offered by the museum. Not the most helpful cartography, but nevertheless we got up to the upper reaches and walked along the canal de la Siagne.

There are some seriously expensive properties up there, protected by barbed wire, dogs with bad tempers, and chaps, who knows, with incurable gun fetiches. The rich are afraid, very afraid. The only drawback to their paranoia was that they tried to cut off the view, too, rendering the footsteps of Bonnard tour slightly pointless.

Still, the heart of the old village is ravishing, and some of the architecture of the surrounding villas, despite the psychoses of those who commissioned it, is of breathtakingly good quality.

Worth the walk, especially for the rare peeks over the security fences towards the Isles de Lérins.

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