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My last day in Cannes was spent visiting Ile St. Marguerite, one of two islands just off the coast of Cannes.
The island has many neat features and there are artifacts that date back as far as 600 BC...maybe, I could be misremembering...it's really old though.
The main attraction on the island is Fort Royal which served as a state prison for France for two centuries and housed many notorious inmates, the most infamous may be the Man in the Iron Mask (the one I had heard of anyway).
Fort Royal now has a museum of artifacts from shipwrecks found off the coast of the island, the museum does not allow pictures but my inability to speak or read french came in my favour this time around and I managed to snap a few before security tracked me down and made me put my camera away.
The fort is also used as a school which surprised me a little, the kids actually sleep in the former soldier barracks...maybe AAFS of Cannes can open our offices in the barracks at Fort Royal.
The highlight of the day forn me though was swimming. Inexplicably this was the first time I had been swimming on this trip.
I had walked most of the way around the island, 2600m according to the signs, and figured the scenery and landscape were not going to change much in the two km remaining. So I decided it was time to cut across the island, see the Fort and head back to the mainland.
As I chugged a bottle of water and snapped a few more pics of the rocky coastline, I noticed a kid jumping off a giant rock in the distance. I decided it was time to go swimming.
When I reached the rock, their were four kids snorkeling amidst the rocks with tiny fishing nets, jumping off the rocks and laughing uncontrollably. Their laughter got even louder when I dropped my backpack and climbed up on the rock.
I swam for what felt like forever in the crystal clear waters and would've swam longer had the last boat back to shore not been at five. In some of my pics, you may notice the AAFS Coin...all trip I have had one in my pocket. I reached into my pocket and tossed the coin into the water in a spot where the the kids were headed.
As I walked away I heard screams of joy from them as they found the coin, which cost $3 when printed...but to them it was a gold coin found on the bottom of the sea.
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