The Principality of Monaco

So Monday, I got up early and went off to Monaco by train. The public transit in the Cote d'Azur's not great. It's not a big city so it's not necessary, but cabs are all Mercedes so they are pretty expensive. There's a train stop in each town though, and each town is so small, it's not too bad. Monaco's about 15-20 minutes away from Nice by train, but it's not in France. It's actually a small principality between France and Italy. It's not part of either country. They have their own royalty and everything. One famous princess of Monaco is Grace Kelly, American actress turned Monaco's princess.


Princess Grace

The current prince of Monaco is Prince Albert, well-known for being a philanderer with all these illegitimate children that keep popping up. Prince Albert is one of Grace Kelly's children, so I guess you can say he's half-American.


Prince Albert (They have this picture hanging up in stores and stuff like he's Chairman Mao or something.)

So anyhow, if the Cote d'Azur were Los Angeles, then Nice would be Malibu, Cannes would be Hollywood, and Monaco would be Beverly Hills. It's a ridiculously rich city, a large part owned by a company called SBM (Societe des Bains de Mer). Monaco citizenship is granted only to a very rich few, so this place is the poshest of the posh.

I got there and went over to the Palais du Prince for the changing of the guard everyday at noon. I was expecting something more like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, with horses and all that, but this was much less grand.


Here are the guards getting off duty.


New guards coming in to replace them. (Ok, for some reason all my vertical pictures are coming out horizontal. Please bare with me until I can fix this.)


And then the old ones return to here. Hmm...great. That was all of like 5 minutes.


The crowd was really small though. I thought it'd be like Buckingham where there's a mob everyday even though it's not like the Queen's there or anything.


Me at the Palais du Prince.

Afterwards, I walked a little ways up to the Cathedrale.



A view of Monaco from La Condemine.

Then I went by bus to the Monte Carlo area. After some walking I found the Casino.

Here is the Casino. It costs €10 to go inside so I opted not to. I don't like gambling or anything and I didn't have any money to gamble anyhow. Instead, I had lunch at Le Cafe de Paris which according to my guide book is the thing to do in Monte Carlo. It's a very famous restaurant owned by SBM. I ordered French onion soup and a salad nicois, remeniscent of Via de France at South Coast. It was much better than Via de France, but considering my meal for one cost over €30, Via de France doesn't seem that bad. The couple next to me was an Italian couple who started to talk with me during lunch. The woman is originally from Kazakhstan. And NO, she's nothing like the people in Borat. She looks East Asian for one, and she was super posh from what I could tell from her shopping bags.

After lunch, I walked around the Place du Casino, which is the gardens in front, and window-shopped. There's all the expensive stores here, but since I don't have ANY credit cards on me, I couldn't dare go into the stores. It would probably make me cry. My dad is sooo lucky I got my credit cards stolen before my trip and haven't gotten them sent back to me yet. He should send the thieves a thank you card.


The shopping area. :(

A garden.

Inside the SBM-owned mall.

Then I walked down to the coast to the Grimaldi Forum, but the show I wanted to see had been the day before, so I walked along the coast all the way back to the harbor. I looked at all the pretty boats. The yachts here are amazing. This place is so dripping with filthy wealth. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in OC and LA so I know what wealth looks like, but we have all the dodgy places in between. Monaco is just wealth, more wealth, and then royalty. It's like if the world exploded and all that was left was Newport Beach and Beverly Hills, and somehow they became attached.

I went on a ferris wheel at the harbor to get some good pictures:


Ferris wheel.


I was really scared because it cost only €3.50 and I dunno, I don't think ferris wheels are all that safe. Still, I guess it's much safer than that crazy zipcord ride we did at the Great Wall.


A view of the harbor.


Everything's really close together here since it's so small.

I have ALOT of pictures, but these pretty much sum it up. Monaco is a beautiful, fantastic place, but there's not much to do without a lot of money. Since I couldn't shop or gamble, I ran out of things to do pretty quickly. But one day when I'm rich, I plan to come back with a vengeance. :)


Me at the train station. One drawback of traveling alone is that there's not always someone to hold the camera. But I've actually rather enjoyed traveling alone. Everywhere I go, I meet all kinds of people. I've been blessed with a really outgoing personality and I don't find it very difficult to talk to strangers. My friend Magda says I can have a conversation with anyone because I do all the talking anyhow. Also, it's freeing not having someone nagging they want to go somewhere different from me.

Yes, my life is fabulous. I only wish I had a credit card while in Monaco, but at the same time, I'm glad I didn't so I wouldn't get tempted to make the many phonecalls to Daddy to ask if I can buy a new handbag...and a new purse...and a new wallet...and so on. Seriously, Dad...you are SOO lucky this time!