The gourmet's guide to Europe

and that I dined very well, without wine, for about 12 francs. The Casino restaurant is a distinct gain to Cannes, and it is the correct thing to drink five o’clock tea in the big hall of the Casino, where the band plays. A small orchestra of Tziganes plays at lunch and dinner in the restaurant. The ladies also gather at tea-time at the white building, where Mme. Rumple- mayer sells cakes and tea and coffee, or at Rohr’s ; and the Gallia also has a clientele of tea-drinkers, for whose benefit the band plays of an afternoon. s. Cannes Clubs Clubs play a very important part in the life of Cannes. A little house built in the expectation that King Edward would come to the town and occupy it was converted into the Cercle de l’Union, which was really a British club though a Russian Grand Duke founded it. It was a particularly snug and home-like club. Alas that I should have to chronicle its demise, and the absorption by the Cercle Nautique of its permanent members. The big French club, to which many of the British residents belong, is the Cercle Nautique, the great building on the Croisette. A band sometimes plays on its terrace ; club dinners are frequently held, as well as the daily house dinner, and there is a baccarat-room. A Ladies’ Club, which has its own rooms, and which gives suppers and dances, is part of the Cercle Nautique, and so is a theatre to which the public is admitted when charity performances are given there. The fashionable place from which to view the Battles of Flowers is the raised terrace of the Cercle Nautique. This club admits properly introduced visitors on very easy terms. A house-boat, a very big house-boat, known as Noah’s Ark? and moored in the harbour, is another nautical 1 1 2 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe club, and is a very merry one during Carnival time. The Cercle Prive of the Casino is the usual baccarat club attached to every Casino. A card with a good London club address and a louis entrance fee are the requisites for admission. The fame of the golf links at La Napoule has gone out to all lands, and in the club-house many people who never hit a ball sit down to lunch ; for the club is a very fashionable social centre. The Cannes Polo Club is the latest addition to the clubs. Its ground lies to the left as you enter Man- delieu from Cannes. A large number of polo ponies are at the disposal of the members. Captain Lambert is its honorary secretary. AFTER DINNER Baccarat at the Casino Club is the usual fashionable after-dinner pastime, but the performances of comedy and opera in the theatre of the Casino are well worth going to, as a rule. The theatre of the Cercle Nautique is used chiefly for performances for various charities. A little music hall, which styles itself a Casino, changes its programme every week. It is chiefly patronised by the townspeople. Nice At Nice the London House was one of the classical restaurants of France, and one talked of it in com- parison with the great houses of the boulevards of the capital. It was a little too solemn and dull for the present day, and it has now, in the hands of some enterprising ladies, become a tea-house, as which, no doubt, it will flourish. The little Restaurant Fran^ais, on the Promenade des Anglais, is one of the cheeriest places possible tq French Provincial Pawns 1 1 3 breakfast at on a sunny morning. In the garden are