Another day in the Riviera, another day trip to another exciting new city! Today's location: Monaco, land of the Monte Carlo casino, Grand Prix car race, ridicoulously expensive yachts, and Grace Kelly! Also, technically the third country we´ve been to so far on the trip, since it is it´s own country. :)
We headed straight to Monaco in the morning, arriving before noon so that we could see the changing of the guards at the Prince´s Palace. It was pretty cool, but only a 5 minute short-and-sweet processional, nothing near as fancy as England´s. Fun though to have seen two Changing of the Guards while in Europe.
The area around the Palace was just gorgeous, it was up high on the hill of Monaco-Ville, overlooking both sides of the city, which stretches along the coast between the hotels on the hills and the marinas on the sea. We got some tasty toasted sandwiches and just admired the view from a bench for awhile. Then, we wandered the back streets, souvenir shopping, until we found the Cathedral of Monaco, which had the tombs of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, both with tons of flowers on them. As we walked back down the hill, wandering through various parks, there were many, many more perfect vantage points for some pretty awesome pictures.
At the bottom of the hill was the marina, full of the biggest yachts we´d seen yet! Seriously, some of them could qualify for cruise ship status! It felt strange in Monaco being among all of these expensive things...makes you feel pretty poor in comparison!
We had been craving crepes the whole time we´d been in France, so we finally stopped and had some at a sidewalk cafe right by the marina. Katie got chocolate and banana, and I got one with mint and lemon ice cream and chocolate sauce. They were pretty much amazing. :) We got to watch one of the yachts leave the harbor as we ate.
Next, we wandered around the coast until we found the Monte Carlo casino, and actually were allowed to get in by the doormen (we´d heard there was a strict dress code). However, since you have to pay to go in the actual gambling rooms, and we weren´t exactly keen on losing money, we just used their nice (free!) bathrooms. ;)
Outside the casino, there was probably the prettiest park we´ve seen yet. Tons of fountains, gardens, tulips in every color, and views of all the casino buildings around. Took probably a couple dozen pictures there...
Of course, how can I forget the other great thing about the casino area...the cars! Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maseratis, Porches...it was ridiculous. I think Katie enjoyed the cars more than me, but it was still pretty cool seeing ALL of the cars in the casino parking lot being crazy rich.
From the casino, we went a bit farther down the coast to the beach area! The beach was small pebbles here instead of sand, so still didn´t beat Antibes. It was packed with families and suntanners, but since we didn´t exactly want to make our sunburns worse, we just chilled by a rock ledge for awhile to relax. However, I think I still did end up getting sunburned even more, whoops.
We left to go back to Nice around 6, and then set off to find some ravioli for our last night dinner in Nice. (We´d heard that ravioli was invented in Nice, so of course we had to have some!) This time, we wandered the backstreets to find dinner, since local neighborhood places are so much more authentic than touristy places in the main squares. We finally found a nice place that was so authentic that the one waiter didnt speak hardly any English! Katie had the funniest time trying to ask him what Pistou sauce was. (We think he said ¨grass¨, but we´re still not sure...) However, our ravioli that we DID figure out how to order was amazing, but sooo filling! After dinner, we then got gelato, since the places were all about to close, which ended up being good yet bad because they gave us SOOO much gelato too! We ate it on the beach, and as hard as I tried to eat it all, I couldn´t, I had to throw the rest of it away. :( Sad last day for gelato.
To cap off our last night in the Riviera, Katie and I just wandered the promenade for a bit, just talking about all sorts of stuff. It was a pretty emotional night for me, which I think happens from all the traveling. It´s hard to explain, but traveling like we are just brings up all sorts of emotions that normally you never have the time to think about. Living out of suitcases like we are, in a different city every few nights, you really feel like you don´t have a home...it´s strange. Good for soul-searching though I suppose.
Well, with that, that´s all for tonight. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment