Monaco part II
For the first time since our arrival for our weekend get-away in the South of France, we saw the sun after leaving the Oceanographic Museum. (well technically we were in a different country, so we still had not seen the sun in France ;) ) .
The Oceanographic Museum is at the ocean cliffside of Monaco-ville, so we combined our search to a late lunch spot with a stroll through the narrow streets of the old city. I love old centers with tiny streets that form a maze inaccessible to cars. Well, a maze is an exaggeration as most streets are simply parallel and there's really not quite that many of them, so the visit is quickly over. We walked by the justice palace that was in favor by a lot of Asian picture snapping tourists, the cathedral (with a Holy Door to my surprise...some research learned me that a) there's Holy Door's outside of Rome and that b) we are currently in an exceptional Jubilee of Mercy. Damn, with some better research beforehand I could have earned another Indulgence since my walk through the Holy Door in Saint Peter's Basilica in 2000 ;). Oh well. I'm getting sidetracked here ) and with the palace.
From the Grimaldi's and Monaco with it's extravagant reputation, I had expected a bit more spectacular palace. The fact that the square in front was under reconstruction didn't help. Nevertheless we chose the square, with the excellent look-out on the rest of the city state as our lunch stop and we praised ourselves lucky that we could eat outside.
After our late lunch we strolled back to the museum, back down all the elevators (the easiest option with a stroller) to walk in the harbour. Much to Kabouter's delight we took the sea bus to cross the harbour to Monte Carlo. In the mean time the dark clouds and a drizzly rain had re-appeared. The enormous extravagant yachts made our tiny boat , as well as many other billion costing "normal" yachts look ridiculous.
After some search and walking up and down, we found the elevators at Monte Carlo's side and we had a look at the famous casino.
The rain increased again, we got cold so we walked back down to the harbour and took the sea bus back to our parking lot in order to return back to our hotel. I had seen enough of this very crowded (claustrophobic) city and did not have the feeling I wanted more of it. Fortunately I had fed Beertje just before leaving and we had all used the washroom as we got stuck in major traffic jams once again around Nice while the rain was pouring pouring down again. What a déjà vu. After almost 3 hours in rain traffic jams that day, I was very happy to come back in our hotel room.
The Oceanographic Museum is at the ocean cliffside of Monaco-ville, so we combined our search to a late lunch spot with a stroll through the narrow streets of the old city. I love old centers with tiny streets that form a maze inaccessible to cars. Well, a maze is an exaggeration as most streets are simply parallel and there's really not quite that many of them, so the visit is quickly over. We walked by the justice palace that was in favor by a lot of Asian picture snapping tourists, the cathedral (with a Holy Door to my surprise...some research learned me that a) there's Holy Door's outside of Rome and that b) we are currently in an exceptional Jubilee of Mercy. Damn, with some better research beforehand I could have earned another Indulgence since my walk through the Holy Door in Saint Peter's Basilica in 2000 ;). Oh well. I'm getting sidetracked here ) and with the palace.
From the Grimaldi's and Monaco with it's extravagant reputation, I had expected a bit more spectacular palace. The fact that the square in front was under reconstruction didn't help. Nevertheless we chose the square, with the excellent look-out on the rest of the city state as our lunch stop and we praised ourselves lucky that we could eat outside.
After our late lunch we strolled back to the museum, back down all the elevators (the easiest option with a stroller) to walk in the harbour. Much to Kabouter's delight we took the sea bus to cross the harbour to Monte Carlo. In the mean time the dark clouds and a drizzly rain had re-appeared. The enormous extravagant yachts made our tiny boat , as well as many other billion costing "normal" yachts look ridiculous.
After some search and walking up and down, we found the elevators at Monte Carlo's side and we had a look at the famous casino.
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