Destination : Monaco - Monte Carlo!

Destination : Monaco - Monte Carlo!

Friday (the 21st September), Steve and I awoke to another beautiful morning greeted by the sunshine blaring through our rustic wooden shutters. On awakening, I decided after breakfast we were going to find a way to get to Monte Carlo as advertised in some of the brochures we had seen when we arrived in Cannes a couple of days earlier. I myself had grown up watching Grace Kelly movies and reading about Prince Ranier, Prince Albert and his sisters Stephanie and Caroline, so curiosity just killed the cat. I wanted to get there and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and how the Rich and Famous have flocked over decades to Monte Carlo.

After having a glorious breakfast by the beach again, Steve and I headed to the train station on how to get a train ticket to Monte Carlo. For 12 Euro's each return, we hopped on a train and started our 55km journey along the coast towards Monte Carlo. This train was not nearly as luxurious as the TGV train we had arrived on in Cannes, but it was comfortable for our journey. To be quite honest, we didn't think that the train ride would take as long as it did, about 90 mins.. but we stopped at every little station between Cannes and our destination. As long as the journey took, it was well worth it to see the exquisite coastline along the way and to watch the train weave its way along the coast right next to the ocean and then the next minute disappearing into a tunnel as it cut through a rocky mountain. I know we have some amazing beaches and coastline in Australia, but nothing like this! There is just something hypnotic about it. We had the camera on the train with us, but even with the advanced technology, the train just whizzed past too quickly for us to catch a decent shot of the breathtaking scenery we were experiencing along the way.

We arrived at Monte Carlo and were greeted by a luxurious train station. Appropriate really for the place... I jumped off the train with enthusiasm and dragged Steve through a weave of corridors.. unknown to me that when we emerged it would be about a mile away from the actual train station. Gare De Monte Carlo is actually placed somewhere in the rocky part of the mountain, it seems in a tunnel or underground or something. Like I said after a fair walk we emerged from the station out to Place Ste Devote. On emerging, we looked out to the beauty before us.. I stopped for just a moment and was dumbfounded...actually I didn't know what to say!

Monte Carlo was gloriously sunny, and we brought sunscreen along that day, so like a good girl I slapped some on my shoulders where I had gotten sun burnt the day before. Steve and I had picked up a map of Monte Carlo when we arrived in Cannes and pulled it out and tried to decide what to do. As we had never been there before, what we normally do when we arrive to a new place is to walk around and explore what a city has to offer and then we kind of decide what to do, whether to go to a Museum or something else. The weather was way too nice and too inviting for us to consider spending the whole day couped up inside a museum...

Firstly, we headed towards Place Du Casino, to have a look around and to explore the area around the Casino. Steve and I felt that we were nowhere nearly appropriately dressed or rich enough to be entering the Casino, we we gazed from the Jardin et Terrassess. Incidentally, the name Monte Carlo comes from Carlo III of Monaco (Charles III, Prince of Monaco) who built the casino to avoid Bankruptcy. The state was founded in 1861 where the official language was Italian and in the last 100 years, the official language has become French. The Casino was designed and built by architect Charles Garnier who also designed the Opera Garnier in Paris! Also, at Place Du Casino, we found Cinema Le Sporting, and a beautiful garden attached to it and some ducks casually bathing in the water fountain! QUACK! How cute are they though?

From the casino grounds our legs took us along Avenue Princess Grace, past the Princess Grace Theatre towards the beach area. On arrival, I was starting to feel a little peckish after our late breakfast at Cannes so we found an ice creamery with as many icecream flavours as your heart could desire. To some.. ICECREAM is just icecream, not to me. This icecream was luxuriously delicious... So a double Rum & Raisin cone later, Steve and I awkwardly walked through a crowd of people on the beach onto a concrete platoon of sorts leading out from the beach into the water... I was actually just curious and wanted to see the purpose of the thing.. and just as well we did because about half way up we were greeted warmly by a school of beautiful fish swimming around. We sat down on the pontoon like thingo and dangled our feet above the water...with the fish swimming under them rather ferociously...circling. I only truly found out what was going on when I accidentally/on purpose dropped a crumb of my waffle cone into the water! Suddenly there were what seemed like a multitude of fish... some had appeared from beneath the concrete slab we were sitting. I suspected that this was a common place of feeding the fish.. it wasn't until later I discovered a sign that said "Please do not feed the Fish, as you can make them sick" Opps.... I was actually fascinated by the different types of fish loitering around.. Steve and I sat there for what seemed like the most tranquil hour of my life, watching these fish swim calmly around and under my feet. As cheesy as it sounds, it was probably one of my favourite moments of the whole trip to France.

After a good hour of resting with the fish, Steve and I got up off our butts and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked....down Avenue Princess Grace and hook turned (I suspect on a section of the Monte Carlo Grand Prix track) back up Boulevard Du Larvotto and stumbled along the way across Jardin Japonais (The Japanese Garden). By the time we got there I was busting for a wizz and thought that the garden would offer some relief... and it did. KIND OF! The funny thing about Monte Carlo is that is is built into the side of a rocky cliff...and alot of the roads are elevated with great big giant concrete walls supporting them. To go to the ladies room (which was apparently inside the garden!) I had to walked down a flight of stairs down to ground level again, wander through a carpark and somewhere tucked in a corner found a toilet and then had to take the journey back up again! Steve and I were both pretty tired by the time we reach the garden, so we welcomed a tranquil setting to sit and take in and have a look around. In the Jardin Japonais we came across a middle aged Aussie husband and wife travelling through and sat down and caught up about the AFL of all things. He asked me "Don't spose you know who won the [enter teams] game?" I said "Nah, haven't been in touch with the footy from back home" but he did manage to tell me that Collingwood lost against Port Adelaide or something like that.. AUSSIES UH?

Anyway, after a nice rest and look around in the Garden and a chat with our Aussie friends, Steve and I headed back towards the train station to relax, watch the Sun go down and grab something to eat. Along the way we found ourselves at the Grimaldi Forum and found a small souvenir shop that sold stamps from the Republic of Monaco... I had brought a few postcards prior to that, so I grabbed the pen out of my bag and started writing. I really just wanted to send a few postcards out with the Monaco Stamp on them. Silly I know, but I LOVE POSTCARDS! I have totally lost track of the number of them I have written since being away from home.. and between Steve and I, I am sure that there are plenty more to go!

Sometime later, we reached the station access point and strolled down further to find a little place by the bay like I said to have our dinner, relax and watch the Sun go down before we headed back to Cannes by train. We had a relatively inexpensive dinner, but I was ravenous by the time we reach that point. We had gotten to Monte Carlo around 12:20pm and apart from breakfast the the icecream treat, neither of us had eaten anything substantial till around 6:30pm. After a Salad Nicoise and a Lasagna demolished by Steve, we sadly boarded our train back to our hotel in Cannes.

We had a glorious day in Monte Carlo although a short one. With the weather being so gorgeous we lapped up every minute of the Summer sunshine we could while we were in France because we knew it wouldn't be so lovely back in London. As I mentioned earlier, we could have spent the day inside a number of the museums in Monte Carlo, but we couldn't resist the outdoors.. and we really only saw a small portion of what this place had to offer. I can't wait to get back there next year when we set out for our European Tour!

Steve and I got back to our hotel room in Cannes weary and tired... and climbed into bed for a good night's rest and ready to bid farewell to the French Riviera the next day.... Stay Tuned!


For photo's from our Monte Carlo experience : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/MonteCarlo

and Monte Carlo Japanese Garden : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/MonteCarloJapaneseGarden


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