You step out of Marseille’s bustle and into a quiet, air-conditioned car; the harbor recedes and the highway opens like a map, the Mediterranean keeping pace to your right. Pines and scrub slope down toward glittering bays, and the Esterel’s rust-colored ridges appear on the horizon, daring you to look up from the road. After about two hours you arrive in Cannes—not for a full-day itinerary, but enough time to climb the old-town stairways, let La Croisette push the sea breeze into your face, and take in the harbour from Place de la Castre.