Valbonne - day three

---

The day has arrived. It's been very fun and very interesting, but unfortunately today is the last day of our trip around Europe.

After an earlier-than-usual breakfast we drove about an hour west to Monaco. This is the second smallest country in the world, behind Vatican City, and while both countries are very wealthy they take a very different approach to displaying that wealth. Monaco is sooooo ostentatious! Our first stop was the famous Casino Square which is part of the Formula One circuit, and we found that it was hosting a small car show....Ferraris, Porsche, Rolls, Lamborgini, McLaren etc. Pretty amazing to be honest, but as our visit progressed we realized that the car show wasn't so special. There were uber-fancy cars on every street, and when we went down to the marina the mega-yachts were a new higher level of obscene wealth display. There were lots of 40m (130 foot) boats that were easy to overlook when the 105m (345 foot) Lady Moura is parked beside! We've just read that it is owned by a Saudi fellow who is thought to have paid around $200 million to have it built. Unreal, and not subtle. Just blunt displays of wealth.

For me the highlight of being in Monaco was being able to be on the famous F1 street circuit. We walked from the Casino Square down to the tunnel and around most of the Marina sections of the course. Then we jumped in the rental Peugeot and drove those sections including the Fairmont Hairpin, the tightest turn on any F1 circuit. Slow but very cool.

We had lunch and then visited the museum housing Prince Rainer III's car collection. There was something for every car enthusiast, from early 1900s cars through to modern F1 race cars.

We headed back to the hotel in mid afternoon to get some pool time before supper in nearby Grasse. Well, that was the plan but for some reason Grasse was entirely closed for business on this Saturday evening so we drove back to Valbonne for our last supper of the trip. A really good French restaurant in the middle of the old town.

We leave here early tomorrow to fly to Minneapolis via Paris. The trip has gone by quickly but we've done so much that it also seems a really long time since we were in Poland. Highlights.....the strongest memory will certainly be of Auschwitz. The most interesting town was probably Prague (it would be better if it were less crowded). Budapest was beautiful. Vienna, nice but skip it. Valbonne definitely most chilled!

As with every trip our family makes, my lovely Mrs deserves all the thanks and praise. She planned everything and did a brilliant job too. Nothing went wrong....oh, except for Grasse being totally closed down tonight, and it was my idea to go there of course!

---