Monaco. June 25

This morning a lady in a mini van picked us up from our apartment, who would drive us to Monaco for the day! We were the first people, and we picked up an Australian couple, a husband and wife from Lebanon and what we think were a mother and daughter, or maybe two friends, from the U.S. Our guide was super lovely and told us loads of little stories and pieces of information.

On the way we stopped at Eze, a small hilltop medieval town. We wandered around for a bit, and stopped for a coffee from an amazing little outdoor café that serves pretty much out of a large hole in the wall. After some time here, we met back with our driver and were driven to one of the factories of the famous perfume company ‘Fragonard’. This particular factory specialises in soaps and body products, but sell the perfumes there too. We were given a tour of the factory and even given samples of the scents, which was wonderful for Elise and her superior sense of smell. (For those of you who have joined us/ didn’t know, Elise has zero sense of smell). Eventually we headed back to the van and continued on to Monaco!

Eze

Little cafe in the wall

Elise taking photos to avoid smelling

Egg soap

We arrived in Monaco, and our guide explained to us about how the town is built on such steep hills, that it’s the way of life of the people to use escalators and lifts to get around. We drove through an underground round-about and parked in carpark -7, where we took two lifts and an escalator to get up to ground level. We were left here by our guide to explore the hill for the next few hours, and we started our adventure by going to the cathedral around the corner. The cathedral isn’t all that extraordinary looking, however it is where Grace Kelly and her husband, the prince, are buried.
Next we walked to the palace, ‘Palais Princier de Monaco’, and caught the end of the changing of the guard. We were a little unimpressed by their uniforms, as we are clearly well seasoned in this now, and stopped paying attention pretty quickly. The palace is built kind of on an edge/ plateau of a hill, so the forecourt functions as an amazing lookout. From one side we could see the edge marker of Monaco and France beyond, and on the other we could look out over Monte Carlo, Monaco, France and Italy! It was super beautiful and also very impressive, as some of the yachts below were bigger than houses!

Hey Gracey

Stopping to smell the roses #appreciatelyf

Elise making trashy friends

When in Monaco

Here we have tourists in their local habitat...

...taking photos of things they actually don't care about

Elise and her ballz #ballin

Montre Carlo, France and Italy tucked behind

We walked through some of the little laneways that come off the forecourt, and stopped for lunch in the courtyard out the front of an Italian restaurant. We ordered two pizzas to share and they were v. v. tasty. Made just the way we all like! And then because we were so into the food, we shared a tiramisu and had a macchiato each. Good decision!

After lunch we wandered through the lanes some more and eventually ended up down in the gardens that fall down the side of the hill and overlook the ocean below. The colour of the water was pretty vivid and apart from the loud, oversized creeper seagulls, we were having the best time. We ended up parking ourselves here until it came time to meet the group and our driver again.

Good colours ya no

Ash sees pizza

Ash feels pizza

Still can't deal with tiny piny cones

Ahoy there sailor

We took the bus down to the next hill, Monte Carlo. To give you a general idea, Monte Carlo means Mount Charles, and was named so after he voided the no gambling rule on that hill. As we drove in, our guide let us know when we started to drive on the Grand Prix track and we tried our best to get photos of pole position!

See the line? Sozza this is the best we got

We were given a bit of free time to explore the area, so we thought it appropriate to go find all the designer stores and pretend that we were actually looking to buy things. We also walked around the centre round-about which sits between the designer store courtyard to the North, shopping centre to the East, famous Casino to the South and fancy-schmancey hotel to the West. Eventually we met back up with the group and were picked up again in the van.

What is this place

Fancy schamncey shop pods

The casino

On the drive out of Monaco we had to drive the wrong way out, into France, just so we could hair-pin around to get onto a higher road. On this road we travelled through a tunnel (the one over the top of the one used in the race) and then the round-about inside the tunnel!
We got back in the evening and decided to go get ice cream for dinner because we are adults and we do what we wan'.

We love you all! A&E