Cannes rewards drivers who treat the car as a key to the Riviera rather than a way around town. The city itself is compact, the Croisette is best on foot, and festival weeks turn seafront traffic into theatre; but with a rental car the coastline unlocks in every direction. Antibes and its old town are around twenty minutes east, the perfume city of Grasse rises about thirty minutes into the hills, Nice is roughly forty minutes along the A8, and out of high season even Saint-Tropez becomes a reasonable ninety-minute run west. The legendary corniche roads toward Nice and beyond stack up some of the most photographed driving views in Europe, and the hill villages of the arriere-pays, from Mougins to Valbonne, sit within half an hour. France drives on the right; EU and EEA licenses are valid as issued, and visitors from elsewhere should carry an International Driving Permit or official translation alongside a home license if it is not in French. The A8 autoroute is tolled at card-friendly peage barriers, while the coastal D6007 and the hill roads are free and far more scenic. Cannes parking is better than its reputation if you use it correctly: head straight for the signed underground garages near the center or the Palais, park once, and walk, because circling for street spaces is where visitors lose their afternoons. Summer and the May film festival are the two demand spikes, for both traffic and rental fleets, so book the car early for those windows and consider timing arrivals outside the late-afternoon coastal crawl. Manual gearboxes remain the French default, and automatics disappear first in high season; reserve one explicitly if you need it. Do that, and the Riviera stops being a crowded promenade and becomes an open coastline with your name on it.
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