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Published: November 8th 2009
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Having allocated a decent amount of time to Nice itself, we decided on the third day to head to the tiny Principality of Monaco or "Principatu de Múnegu" in its native dialect of Ligurian, a western Romance language. At 33,000 people Monaco is the world's most densely populated sovereign country and the second smallest country after the Vatican. It would take maybe an hour to traverse the entire 2 km². It has been ruled by the House of Grimaldi since 1297 - the most famous member of the royal family was undoubtedly Grace Kelly who married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco in 1956.
The bus ride from Nice was a mere 1€ and hugged the incredible Mediterranean coastline for the entirely of the maybe 45 minute trip. Border control was non-existent, and suddenly we were in the tiny country. Our first order of business was catching the changing of the guard at the Prince's Palace high above the city at just before 11. As we got higher and higher the views became more and more incredible. The palace itself was built in the 12th century, and the royal family has ruled from the same place for over 700 years -
quite impressive. The actual structure isn't much to write home about - it is neither symmetrical nor incredibly beautiful, but its fun for what it is.
The changing of the guard was cute, but not exactly a massively opulent display. I have a nice little video of it, but I can't ever seem to upload videos onto the blog. Oh well. Opposite the palace are gorgeous views of more or less the entire country, more specifically La Condamine and the Bay of Hercules. After a photo shoot we headed back down to caffeinate at a small cafè and also picked up some postcards to send. Unfortunately due to the ghetto-ness of the Monaco stamps, my two postcards will probably never reach the states since the stamps have most likely fallen off.
After our coffee we headed through a ghetto-fabulous carnival right along the harbor. I really hate carnivals, even when they're in gorgeous places. Moving onward we headed further along toward Monte Carlo, intending to visit the casino.
Unfortunately the casino, itself, was closed until 3pm, so we killed time sunning ourselves in front of the gardens near the Hotel de Paris. Eventually we entered the casino,
but unfortunately to get past the unsightly slot machine section one had to pay 10€. Boo. Since we just wanted to take a peek and maybe have some champagne, we decided to forego entry.
The only thing I regret not having done was visiting the Cathedral, where Grace Kelly and other members of the Royal family are interred. Someday when I'm rich I'll come back to the Principality to bask in the sun and sip gin martinis looking out over the Mediterranean. Meanwhile my manservant will be gambling for me inside the casino. Overall I was pleasantly surprised in that the tiny country wasn't just an overly gaudy tax haven and has a long and interesting history.
Since we were already so far east, we next hopped on the bus again to the French town of Menton, just a bit before the Italian border. Unfortunately we didn't reach the supposedly quaint and picturesque old town, but we did have a nice lunch right on the water. My fish tajine was acceptable, and the jug of wine made up for any lack in deliciousness. Feeling invigorated we took a small photo shoot on the water before heading back to
Nice. On the bus back we saw the most incredible sunset EVER but unfortunately we were trapped on the bus and couldn't snap a picture...
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Mom
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Surprise - got your ghetto-stamped postcard from Monaco yesterday (Saturday). The stamp was not very secure but it was there. I was amazed at how quickly we got it considering the postmark was dated 11/3/09!