Monaco, Nice & Eze

We were living right today. The weather was PERFECT!!!! No sweating, no heat, nice air temperature, blue skies, and a gentle breeze. What could be better for touring?

Monaco is the second smallest country in the world and is a constitutional monarchy ruled by Prince Albert, son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace Kelly. It was founded 700 years ago and has been ruled by the Gramaldi family for most of that time. The country has only 35,000inhabitants, and of those only 6,000 are citizens of Monaco. To become a citizen, your family must have lived in Monaco for four generations or you can buy citizenship (buy citizenship!?!?!). Citizens pay no taxes. It is a small place, only 2.8 square kilometers, but home to some of the richest people on earth. Bill Gates, Madonna and Bono have homes here.

The city is outrageously expensive, with condos going for 30,000 to 60,000 Euros per square meter. That means a 3,000 square foot condo with a harbor view sells for about $2,000,000. Moored next to our ship was the privately owned yacht “Lady Moura,” up until recently the largest privately owned yacht in the world at 150 meters. It cost $125,000,000 to build and has a permanent crew of 65. The name is painted on the side is in 24 karat gold, and is owned by the personal secretary to an Emirate Sheik, so one can only wonder what kind of boat his boss has!!! Monte Carlo is best known for its casinos (think James Bond), and its Gran Prix.

Monaco is the gate way to the Cote d’Azur (the Blue Coast) and is sandwiched between Italy and France. Michael and I both had separate tours today, but we covered much of the same territory. The Coast has three roads that run along it in parallel called “Cornices.” It is hard to distinguish France from Monaco from Italy as this is more of less like one big area.

We both traveled to Nice on a curvy, winding road up the side of a cliff (at 1,000 feet high) which is part of the Alps. Nice is a huge seaside resort that has a large Italian influence since it was Italian until 1860, at which time it became a part of France. It was founded by the Greeks in 500 BC so it is a very old city with lots of old stone castles, walls and roads. Nice is in Provence, one of the 65 Departments into which France is divided. Interestingly, while tourism is by far the region’s largest industry, agriculture, and specifically the growth of the products that go into the manufacture of perfume, is the next largest business. Michael thinks the third largest industry is rest rooms, since they charged him 35 cents to pee. We also saw the place on the Upper Cornice road where Grace Kelly had her deadly car crash.

While I rode in air conditioned comfort to see the sights of Nice, Michael had the opportunity to walk through the city center, along its fabled beaches and through its flower and vegetable markets, which were very expensive. We saw some large yachts, and I do mean LARGE, docked or anchored in one of several harbors.

Michael went to Eze, a medieval village at the top of the hill. In order to reach the village, he had to climb some 250 stairs to get there. It was beautiful, and while it is mostly shops and restaurants now, it is still home to a number of very, very wealthy people. As a reward for climbing all those stairs, he was rewarded with and enjoyed a very large beer. Upon returning to Monte Carlo, he wandered by foot around the casinos, grand hotels and the shopping mall, and returned empty handed. There wasn’t a single item in the mall that he could afford to buy.

While he was mountain climbing and shopping at the mall, I got to hike up the hill to the royal village and see the royal palace, the royal church, the royal tombs, the royal villas, and the royal souvenir shops. There was a huge aquarium and museum up on the hill and I could not for the life of me figure out why it was there as this isn’t exactly my definition of something royal. This is not exactly an easy place to get to either. We did arrive in time to see the changing of the guards; corny but nice.

While Michael was strolling around town, I found a nice chaise on the aft deck and just lay in the sun. I am about ready to give up and give in as my body is running on fumes. I don’t know when I have been this tired and hurting so much. We just received escort duty for the rest of the trip (we have a tour in each port city); it is tempting to turn one or two down, but geesh, we are here and I am going to see everything because I am afraid I will miss something. Who knows if I will ever get back here again? So, I am sitting here in bed writing and will send it off, and then I am off to bed. We get to sleep in tomorrow as the ship doesn’t arrive in Barcelona until 9am. This getting up at 6am is for the birds. I finally broke down and made a massage appointment for tomorrow because at this point, I don’t really care how much it costs, I just need to keep going.