Nice Day Two

 Nice is rather centrally located along the south coast making it an ideal jumping off point for day trips to the other towns in the region. Today I figured was as good a day as any to check out Monaco. I walked to Gare d’ SNCF (there’s a sign you’ll never see in Paris) and battled with a ZOU machine to get my train ticket. For those not in the know, the regional rail ticket machines use this incredibly French system of input devices. You get a big red cancel button, a big green button that means everything green can mean, and a four inch wide wheel you twist with your hands to tell the clanker where you’d like to go. It’s easy once you get the hang of it but the learning curve is steep. To me and the others pecking at the screen looking for touch targets it may as well be alien technology. A fun relic of the Minitel era. 

I board the train and remark to the passenger next to me that the coast is gorgeous. We strike up a conversation. Yui is visiting from Tokyo and as it turns out we both have the same agenda today. Go to Monaco, see Monaco, go back to Nice. With that, we resolve to see Monaco together.

 

Isn’t she a beaut?

Our first stop is to walk and sit at a cafe. In French towns parking yourself at a square with a cup of coffee is a great way to take in the vibe and the people. Photos are not permitted in Monaco in and around the casino and hotels. This is by national law. The prince is kind but many of the high value tourists are attracted to the discretion as well as the beauty. The hotel keeps no records and consequentially it is the only place in Europe that does not accept credit card points for lodging. We sit at the casino cafe. Plastic surgery, loud cars, I feel like I’m back in Beverly Hills just with less traffic.

Beverly Hills

Next stop, Monte Carlo. The casino was built by the Royal family about a hundred and fifty years ago to heal their ailing finances. Needless to say, it’s been working. Nothing is free in Monaco and we pay 20 euro each to enter the casino. Keeps the riff raff out. 10 of those euros are returned to us as a slot credit. Some of that makes it out the door again. The inside is opulently decorated with tables that range from eye poppingly expensive to tourist stakes. Penny slots are easier to find here than they are in Vegas, at least in the off season.

I did not break the bank

We wander down the hill to get a view of the harbor. This is an odd little city. It is incredibly small and dense. 30,000 people have been shoehorned into less than a square mile of space. On top of that there’s plenty of hotel rooms, recreation space, and offices to launder the world’s money. Tomorrow is the Monegasque national day so there are flags everywhere. We come all the way down the hill to a carnival, the rides are the same as in the US but the food is different. I tried soca here, a local treat that is best described as a chickpea flour crepe which is cooked until crispy and broken up. Delicious.

Big boats and big money

Yui is interested in seeing the palace and old city so we go up “the rock” to check it out. The layout is getting familiar. Narrow streets, a cute charge, we turn a corner and BAM there’s the castle. Old European cities are built very similarly. Of course with the national day coming up all the main sites are beautifully decorated and closed.

Don’t ask what I was doing with my hands I don’t know either

On a whim, we go to the Oceanography Museum. This is Monaco’s greatest bargain and really an incredible place. If you have a hobby, you may have dedicated some space in your home to that hobby. If you have some money you may dedicate or build a room. If you are a prince, you make a museum. For three generations the Monagesque princes have explored the ocean and done real scientific research. The results are displayed here and they are incredible.

A solid day. We went back to Nice, Yui had to meet a friend for dinner and so I went my own way. Dinner, beer, book, bed.