Saturday, our one day to enjoy all Monaco had to offer. We caught the 30minute bus into Monaco early, and had been tipped off that bus line 100 took us along the coast. It was an amazing view, if not also a terrifying ride as the driver whipped us along winding curves, through the mountains, right next to the cliffs.
First hit up the Monte Carlo casino. It costs 10euro to even get inside, so we just refrained, instead admiring the unbelievable collection of Lambourghinis, Mustangs, Bentleys, and Rolls Royce in front of the casino. There were also some lovely gardens out back and a phenomenal view of the incredibly blue water, gorgeous green cliffs, and the orange roofs that climb up the mountains.
Next stop was the palace, which required us to walk along the water, through the harbor, through a carnival setting up. We shopped and watched the changing of the guards, which was terrible. The slouched and fidgeted and craned their necks to see what the other guards were doing. Compared to Buckingham, it was a joke. Stef and Amanda went into the palace while the rest of us hung around in the courtyard; I bought a fleece for myself finally. The palace was nice from the outside, but small and overall not very impressive.
From there, headed down through the Jardins Exotique to the Cathedral, which is actually was inspired the whole trip. Amanda has an absolute adoration for Princess Grace Kelly, who is buried in the church, and it has always been her dream to see her grace. Every five steps it Grace Kelly monument or statue or picture, and she admired each and every one. When we hit the Cathedral, though, the trip was all worth it for the look on her face, which I managed to capture on film:
We wandered around inside and admired the church and graves. It was nice –late Roman, Eric said. Less opulent than St. Paul’s, less intimidating than Westminster; reminded me a lot of Notre Dame, inside and out.
By this point, when we got outside, we had to admit we were all FREEZING. It was getting windier and windier, colder and colder, and we had all been under the impression it would warm, so we were underdressed. Nonetheless, despite our frozen noses, off we trooped to the Aquarium, what was supposedly one of the world’s best.
Not. All the hype was disappointing. All the tanks were confined to the basement, and though seeing some new kinds of fish was cool, and though aquariums are ALWAYS fun, it wasn’t half as good as even Texas State Aquarium. I was more interested in the Oceanography Museum upstairs, which had all kinds of fish, sharks, squid, and starfish preserved in formaldihyde (sp?) from the 19th and early 20th century. It was disgusting; everything was all shriveled up like aliens. But it made me feel like an old oceanographer. And I finally got to see what whale baleen actually looks like. The view from on top of the aquarium was what made it actually worth the 6euro admission. Have I said yet how BLUE the water is?
Ate lunch in a little pizza place that had good prices. The waitress was horribly cold and rude, though. And she also didn’t mention to us that when Bridget, Stef, and I decided to share one pizza instead of getting our own, there was a 2euro charge. Each. We could have gotten two pizzas for that much. We were so furious –the waitress didn’t tell us and it didn’t say charge for splitting ANYWHERE on the menu– that we didn’t give any tip beyond the service charge. SOOOO angry.
The day was growing old, and we had thought about trying to find the rose garden, but sudden clouds were looking ominious overhead and we had quite a bit of a walk to the beach –which is what we all really wanted to do. So off we set, through the habor where we admired all the multi-million-dollar yachts collected from around the world, through the carnival, through the mountains, along the boardwalk, until finally finding a public area on the other side of the Monte Carlo Bay resort. Some surfers were in the water in full body suits, but we dove right in –Stef, Bridget and me in bikinis and Amanda in shorts and a t. shirt because she forgot her bathing suit. Eric opted out and Jessye preferred to take pictures. The air was frigid but the water wasn’t bad at all. Unfortunately, the tide was coming in. So in our battle with the Med Sea, we lost horribly. The waves knocked us all over the place and would threw us seven or eight feet upshore each time. And the beach wasn’t sand, it was smooth pebbles, which were beautiful but impossible and painful to stand on. So each time you couldn’t get footing to try and hold your own against the waves. After about fiften minutes, we’d had enough and could now say we’d swum in the Mediterranean sea, so out we got and toweled off, our bodies aching and our feet near bleeding. But it was totally worth it.
It was getting quite late and we didn’t know for sure where the bus we wanted was, but after only a bit of wandering we found it, and we got to watch the sun set over Monaco as we looked. I’ve seen better sunsets overall, but it was still beautiful, and the fact that it was already paired with the unearthly beauty of the mountains and buildings and sea helped.
Just picked up things at the grocery store and had a powwow on the floor of our hostel room (which had a microwave) for dinner, taking turns showering. It was a lovely, relaxing close to an AMAZING day.
