Bienvenue à Monaco

So after a somewhat rough start this morning, complete with minor bickering about the time, I forfeited sleeping in for a windy bus along the coast to Monaco.  Okay, I wouldn’t say forfeit, though the bus ride wasn’t entirely pleasant.  I can deal with bus rides, I can deal with car rides through windy roads, however I cannot deal with bus rides through windy roads.  At least not well.  So after finally getting off the bus and breathing in the cool, clean beautiful air of Monaco, and a quick lunch of Margarita pizza and tomato mozzarella salad on the beautiful Rue Princesse Caroline (thats right, I knew I was a princess!) I was feeling much better.

Now, let me answer the obvious questions: No, I didn’t see any of the Royal Family, or where they lived, and I did not set foot in the Monte Carlo Casino (but I did find it).  However, I did walk the ENTIRE route of the Monaco Grand Prix.  For all my car crazed buddies, be jealous.  Jon was really quite fun to watch.  His face would light up like he’s driven this course a thousand times, and got so excited every time we got to a particularly crazy turn, and just had to take the time to explain how the race would go through each of them.  Okay, I don’t mean that like I wasn’t enjoying it, because I was.  Of all the crazy obsession this boy could have, cars and races is a pretty good one.  That is essentially the whole reason for this trip to Monaco.  There will definitely be more though.

Just like we’ve been doing in Nice, we did a TON of walking.  Only the streets of Monaco are so much nicer than Nice.  I feel its unfair to compare the two though.  Nice is a very old resort town of France, right on the Mediterranean that has history dating back to the Greek Empire.  Monaco, on the other hand, is a microstate that I would describe as the European Las Vegas; a beautiful, expensive, constitutional monarchy that has been ruled by the House of Grimaldi for the past 7+ centuries, and could cost you nearly $2,000 a night just in hotel costs should you decide to vacation there.  You see why these two are incomparable- two completely separate and unique sorts of beautiful.  All that being said, I did thoroughly enjoy not having to watch my every step for dog doo.

Just as entertaining as seeing Jon describe the race was when he would see a particularly bad ass car.  I think in order to live in Monaco, you have to spend at least $250,000 on your car.  Amongst all the rather impressive Maserati’s, Porsche’s, Lamborghini’s, and a few of the new bagillion dollar Rolls Royce’s, we did see two rather impressive Ferrari’s.  These would have to be impressive to get Jon’s attention, since he generally doesn’t like Ferrari on principle, and boy were they.  The one I got pictures of was the Ferrari 599 GTO.  Apparently called the 599 because thats how many they made, and has a 5.99 liter engine, but other than that, I don’t know why its so impressive.  I keep up with his car obsession enough to know when something is impressive, but not enough to know why.  The other one, I failed to get pictures of, but was the Ferrari 458 Italia, which is apparently their new hyper car.  It was pretty, nevertheless.

Just as impressive as the cars were the yachts.  I’ve decided that my new goal in life is to own a yacht.  I WILL!  Okay, maybe not, since these were the types of yachts you only owned because you’ve grown up in that sort of wealth, but I will damn sure try!

Oh, and I got to feed some ducks.  I bought a bottle of wine for €4,35 (or $5.88) and some bread to go with it (that I’m currently enjoying, yum).  And I realized that I need a different coat.  Its just warm enough here that its too hot with my coat on, but too cold without it.  Its sort of frustrating, so I’ll be scoping the mall on Monday when everything opens back up (because it closes down on Sunday). C’est la vie.

I fell asleep on the bus ride home, which is probably for the best.  Came home and passed out until dinnertime.

And there you have it.  Monaco.  We’re definitely going back with a better itinerary.  I want to check out the museums and find the Prince’s Palace.  I saw what I thought might be it, but whether it is or isn’t, I still want to see what it was.  I think I know what our Saturdays from here on out will consist of: bus trips out of Nice.

Alright, here’s the pictures I took today.  I felt like such a tourist, I don’t find them all that aesthetically pleasing, but everyone who knew we were going to Monaco insisted I take a ton of pictures, so here you are!

See! I knew I was a princess! :)

This tasted just like the Cola Cao I would have in Spain! Nostalgia-gasm!

Tomato mozzarella salad.

Margarita pizza!

The view of Rue Princesse Caroline, where we dined.

Beautiful Monaco

I thought the blue tiled roof was really neat.

Bridge, church, and some Grand Prix statue.

Jon’s “My New Haircut” pose.

This is Sea Force One. I want it.

Mountain view

I don’t know what this building is, but I liked it.

I don’t know what kind of car this is, but I thought it was awesome too.

I had to find out what this building was.

So I got right up next to it and still couldn’t figure it out.

Then after deciding we weren’t going to bother figuring it out anymore, we found the sign!

Oh hi, random cliff hanging apartment building!

Jon said they valeted these cars out front on purpose. Gee, maybe because its the hotel across from the casino?

Ferrari 599 GTO from the front.

Ferrari 599 GTO from the rear.

The famous Monte Carlo Casino

Coolest entrance ever.

DUCKIES!

Awful, blurry picture, but the GP has a tunnel in its circuit that goes right under this hotel.

Beautiful blue water.

I’m determined to go sailing in the Med while I’m here.

Even the rocks are pretty in Monaco.

This was docked a few boats away from Sea Force One. I want it too.

Buildings, building, OH HIYA CLIFF!

View of the harbour.

This is possibly the Prince’s Palace, or just an old castle sort of thing. Either way, I’ll figure it out.

I had to get a picture of us together, no matter how awful and tired we look.

N’oubliez jamais votre carte mémoire

Yep, never forget your memory card.  This is of course something we learned on day one, and I will allow myself to use the “sick card” as my excuse.  This time it was me, so at least Jon got some good pictures.  You can view them when he gets to posting them later on his blog: Falcon Punch

So, all I can do is tell you about our trip to the harbour.  First of all, street signs are hard to find in France.  They’re on the corners of the buildings.  Given how short most of the cars are, and how far up they have these signs, I’m a little disconcerted by the presumed ability for drivers to see pedestrians.  But alas, we are not driving, so we just have to watch out for the crazy drivers.  At least we found our way there.  Boy did we too.  The harbour is gorgeous.  And has quite the display of wealth too.  Family sized sailboats to huge $100 million yachts.  But what I found even more exciting was the view we got when we walked all the way out to the break water.  No beach to look through, just the wall, and then water.  Beautiful, crystal clear, blue water.  Jon also decided to scare me a little by jumping around on the big rocks that make up the wall… they’re hard to explain, so you’ll have to check out his pictures on his blog. :)

After sitting on the wall for a while, catching my breath and trying not to cough, we ventured back into the city, only to find it packed full of people.  We’re a couple weeks away from Nice’s world famous Carnival, only it seems the party has started already.  There was some sort of outdoor concert going on with some artist whom I did not recognize.  Apparently he was worth standing around for though.  We ran into a candy stand where we spent probably a little more than we should have, but I got to relive some of my nostalgia, and share it with Jon, so it was worth it.  Growing up in Spain, there was this candy shop across the street from  my friend’s house, and they always had the best gummy candies.  This table was full of those same candies!  They were delicious.

Now, other than the candy, we bought some bread, some water, and a bottle of real Fanta Orange.  But that doesn’t mean serious shopping hasn’t been on my mind since we got here.  There’s an H&M like, three blocks away from where we’re staying, the biggest Sephora I’ve ever seen in my entire life just a few blocks further, nevermind all the stores with names I don’t recognize but gorgeous fashion in the windows.  The French really do have style.  My goal is, other than buying a wallet of some sort, to ward off shopping for at least another month.  Maybe after some saving and some grand sight seeing I will reward myself with a little retail therapy.

Retail therapy?  Who am I kidding?  I’m in France, not much need for therapy!