Postcard From Cannes, France

A waterfront scene in Cannes, © Palais Stephanie

Legions are about to descend upon Cannes for the film festival this month. Though it has its charms, this small resort town west of Nice has never been one of our favorite places in the south of France. Outside of the film festival, it’s often filled with business conventions, and we tend to find its full-bore materialism a bit dispiriting. However, just before Easter on our way to North Africa we decided to spend a day here out of curiosity. On the cusp of high season, we were surprised to find ourselves enjoying this refreshingly polite and well-tended resort.

Having heard that the 261-room Noga Hilton, formerly the ugly duckling of La Croisette (Cannes’ famous seafront boulevard) had recently undergone a €40 million renovation and been rechristened Hôtel Palais Stéphanie, we checked in for a night. We're glad we did, as turns out this is a terrific hotel with very comfortable and attractively decorated rooms and friendly, well-drilled service. Our luxury seaview room had fine views of the Mediterranean through double-glazed windows. The decor featured camel-colored carpeting, handsome saddle-stitched brown leather walls, and in a nod to the resort's famous film festival, a black-and-white photo of a young Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. A spacious bath had a separate tub and shower lined with porcelain bisque tiles. On a breezy spring morning, we enjoyed a brisk walk on La Croisette and then took a boat over to the Ile Saint-Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands in the Bay of Cannes, for a pleasant lunch of fish soup and grilled fish at La Tonnelle, the restaurant run by the monks of the Abbaye de Lérins. We also enjoyed several glasses of one of our favorite southern French wines, Cuvée Saint-Pierre, an elegant white made from Chardonnay grapes grown on the islands. A nice quiet walk around this beautiful, peaceful island after lunch was a pleasure.

Later that evening we had an excellent meal of gnocchi with green asparagus and octopus bourride (a sort of stew) at Mantel, an excellent low-key bistro in Le Suquet, the old town of Cannes. There we fell into conversation with a nice couple from Philadelphia who’ve been spending a month in Cannes every year for 25 years. “We always come the last weekend of March and leave the first weekend of May,” the gentleman explained. “Late spring is the perfect season for Cannes,” his wife added. We're inclined to agree — without the crowds, Cannes can be a very pleasant place to stop off during a trip along the Riviera. Hôtel Palais Stéphanie, 50 boulevard de la Croisette. Tel. 33-4-92-99-70-00. Mantel, 22 rue Saint-Antoine-Le-Suquet. Tel. 33-4-93-39-13-10. La Tonnelle, Ile Saint-Honorat, Tel. 33-4-92-99-54-08.