First of - people get Monaco and Monte Carlo confused. Simply - Monte Carlo is a section of Monaco developed much later - specifically to cater to the tourists.
Monaco is as separate country surrounded by the country of France on 3 sides - the southern side is the Mediterranean Seas. The only country smaller than it is the Vatican. It is a democratic monarchy. It has been ruled by the Grimaldi family for hundreds of years. The present monarch is Prince Ranier. You may re-call that he married Grace Kelly from Philadelphia.
There is 1 main casino in the Monte Carlo section. It is surrounded by luxurious hotels. Quite frankly - the Hotel de Paris is the first hotel that refused to let us browse through it. I wonder how the guard knew that we were not staying there. the casino is divided into 2 sections. One section is very small and has just slot machines in it. This is where they let the low grade tourist go for free - how nice of them. The second section has an entry fee of 12 euros - about $17 a day. It was just gaming tables and was more stately in that casino. We heard rumors that you had to have dress clothing on to got there - but we viewed many sandaled and shorted tourists going in. I guess $17 waives the fancy dress requirement.
Monaco is not even the size of Disneyworld. Also - like Disneyworld all their money comes form the tourist trade and selling tourists fancy homes. Real Estate is high priced and their are tons of fancy European cars all over. Many of the Bentleys and Ferraris are rental cars. It gets pretty pathetic watching plane jane tourists renting a red Ferrari to tool around the winding streets at 30 mph.
Monaco is the only place that still has Grand Prix racing right in the streets. In May - the race attracts 180,000 tourists. It takes them 6 weeks to prepare the race track and 3 weeks to tear it down. It will be fun watching the race next May on TV and picking out all the sites where we toured.
You may re-call that Princess Grace Kelly got killed when her car went off a cliff when its brakes failed. there are winding roads all over - and it looks like they put up many walls after she went off the cliff.
I will add some pictures later to this story - because with the Mediterranean weather - it is truly beautiful here.
The beaches are disappointed and exciting all in one breath. The "beaches" are covered with not sand. As a result it is very clean - but they can't compare to the Florida beaches. The rounded river pebbles are about the size of a pencil eraser. We got a bottle full of them - in case we can get it by security at the airport. The exciting part is the commonality of nudity. Prudish Americans can't quite get over this. Many of the nude bodies are leathery and saggy - but every now and them a really pretty one is seen. It is hard getting used to folks changing their clothes on the beach - and drying off in full view - without even a care or glance.
We are staying in a very nice hotel in Nice. We are a couple blocks from the beach. I am typing this from a McDonalds right on the beach. They have free internet - and many folks come here to get online. Our hotel has no internet at all. Even on our balcony I cannot reach free wifi. Most places in town that we checked need passwords.
We took the train from Nice to Monaco. It was normally 3 euros each way. We planned to pay for our tickets on the train - but no one came around to collect. The train was crowded in both directions with day tourists - and people from the many cruise ships that come to Nice.
The water here is a pretty blue - but not very warm - maybe 76. The bottom is very rocky where we went - Lulu left her sandals on to go in the water.
There is a tram train that takes your on a tour of Monaco. We took that tour because they had earphones that you could set to 12 languages. It made the tram very quiet - but also shut up the tourists.
We walked down along the harbor - there are tons of pleasure boats there. Many of them look like they do not move often. Lots were from London and the Cayman Islands. I doubt if people make that trip - they fly and have help take the boats.
There are so many neat cars - not just the rich ones - but the smalls one. they pay 1.50 euros per liter - that is about $10 a gallon - so they squeeze everything out of that gallon. 90% of the cars are standard shift. And truly scooters outnumber the cars. You can park scooters almost anywhere - and in some places people put their cars on the sidewalks. Cars even park on the rounded intersection corners. In my opinion drivers are more courteous here than in London - but American drivers are by far the most courteous. Lulu almost got hit by a cab even when she was in a zebra crossing here with the green walking light on.
Of course - everything is written in French here - and they do not "double print" things in English. Many times - they "choose" not to understand English tourists. It is like they speak a different language :-)
Food is more expensive here to us because of the terrible state of the American dollar - thanks to Bush and his war. I am surprised how people can separate Americans from Bush. I can also see why how the Dixie Chicks felt over here about Bush and his oil war. enough politics.
Since Lulu is being paid to be in Europe and we have a free a nice free flat in London - we are a bit jaded. It costs a lot more for "regular" Americans to come over here now. 1 pound is 2 dollars and 1 euro is about $1.75.
So Nice and Monaco remind us a lot of Miami Beach and Waikiki. Along the beahces there are rows of very expensive hotels and condo. There are a lot of upscale stores for fashions - cosmetics - etc.
We have 2 more days here - Lulu wants to go to Cannes next. It is about 17 miles by train. I am guessing it will be a lot like nice.
By the way - yesterday Angelina Jolie had here twins over her yesterday. It is all over the news. We have about 8 TV channels and only 2 our in English - one of them is only English every other hour - that we share with German - what a hoot. It is funny seeing the same 2 stories scrolling across the bottom of the screen for long times.
We left oru good computers in London - I am tpying from an old Apple ibook. It is a little slower - but at least if I lose it - it is no big deal. I also forgot to install Slingbox on it - so no American TV on this trip.
We are having a blast - but if I were paying for all this - I would be cranky.
