Day 7

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Todays theme was "fish day." This was because we saw a lot of fish today. After taking the short train ride to Monaco, we made our way to the aquarium. We got their pretty much just as they were opening and were able to see them feed all of the fish. (it made up for the day before). My favorite to see was watching the sea horses suck up little teenie brine shrimp floating around in the water. There was also a guy trying to remove a fish that had something wrong with its eye. I only mention this because it was actually pretty interesting to watch. He had two nets but the fish always seemed to find a way around the coral structures and escape the net. It was like watching a soccer game we laughed later. We were cheering for the net and were hoping that we were cheering for the right team (hopefully they weren't going to kill the fish). We even saw them feed the baby fish. There was a swarm of them and the food was gone so fast (like one minute). Upstairs was a aquatic museum with large beautiful rooms with wood floors and glass chandelieres (sp?). On the roof was once again a beautiful view of the sea. We decided to stop here and read our lesson for a bit. It was SO relaxing.

Next, we bought a french sandwich on the street and had a picnic on one of the many garden tarraces overlooking the water. We did a quick tour of the local cathedral (lit a prayer candel) and saw several graves of saints where many latino looking tourists were furiously taking pictures of the graves. We detoured our way around the city (we really didn't know where we were going. Pretty typical!). We climbed to the top of the city where the Prince of Monaco's palace lay. As we approached the front of the palace I could have sworn that the guard in front was a paper cut-out. But when he started marching in front, it ruined my theory. 😊

We later took another bus to "the National Museum" which was NOT what we expected. Being called the National museum we thought it would have a variety of well known artist (we should have read the sign). But it turns out it only had an exibit on dolls and puppets. We got a french tour of the museum (I don't think the tour guide knew we didn't speak french) where I whispered short incomplete translations to Jo (the little I could understand). Once again, NOT what we expected. But it was interesting. We finished the day by visiting a japanese garden where, once again, they had fish. Carp to be exact, and we fed them a little of jo's sandwich that she saved. It was so funny seeing them fight over the little bits of bread we threw. We even had a small turtle stop over and see what was going on. It was fun and relaxing. Next, we headed back to Nice for a nights rest before taking the train the next day to Milan. Our first stop in Italy! a demain! (until tomorrow!)

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