A trip to Monaco

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Today we anchored at Cannes and had to take a tender into the dock. Called “Cane Harbor” by the Romans because of the abundance of reeds in the nearby marshes Cannes today is the center of the French Riviera. We did a tour to Monaco and Monte Carlo. Although less than a square mile in size, Monaco is a sovereign state. In 1308, Genoa sold this tiny principality to the Grimaldi family, which still rules it. We went to the Palace but because the Prince was in residence, we could not tour. We were able to watch the changing of the guard. Saw the St. Nicholas Cathedral where Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) is buried but did not go in due to the crowds. After walking the old town, it was time to take a few minutes to enjoy a coffee before we did anything else. Naturally Marci just had to stop at one of the Casinos for a few minutes (5 euros worth). The main Casino did not open until 2:30PM and not one to let small details stop her Marci found one at Café de Paris that was open. It is fun seeing things on the French Riviera that we have only read about. It was time to go back to Cannes where the bus dropped us off at the dock. We were hungry and decided to walk back into town. As luck would have it, we just happened to walk past a topless beach on our way to get a sandwich. Not too exciting thou because most of the people were either men or were getting sun on their backs. I can't believe our luck with the weather. We are following a storm that is two days ahead of us and there is another storm about two days behind us but we have had beautiful weather at every stop with the temp in the low 20'sC (for the US that is the low 70's). As we pulled up anchor and started heading out to sea, a flotilla of about a dozen jet skis pulled along side and escorted us out into the Mediterranean.

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