Lunch in Monaco
tamaraland's Plan A was not working out so she decided on Plan B - catching a train to Lodi. Saturday we went on a road trip to Monaco for lunch.
Since Monaco is built on a hillside and land is at an extreme premium the streets are awfully narrow. We found parking without too much trouble. Surprisingly enough parking in Monaco is cheap. Only €4.20 for the afternoon. I can't do that in Toronto. Lunch was nice. My tongue was not working however. The waiter was talking to me in French, I was understanding what he was saying but my brain was automatically trying to respond in bad Italian. It struck me as odd that the change from lunch consisted of Euro coins from three or four different countries.
After lunch we wondered around a while. Toward the waterfront we came across this sign:
I think it might turn into a usericon.
We did what James Bond would do and went to the Monte-Carlo Casino. Not surprisingly there was a nice assortment of cars in front. For whatever reason the majority were Porsches although there was a Maserati, and a Smart forfour mixed in with the BMWs and Mercedes. This is classic though, I wonder how much money you have to drop in the casino to get the Courtesy Porsche.
This was actually the first time I have ever stepped foot in a Casino. We were there mid-day which I sure is completely different than at night. There was a cruise ship parked in the harbour and cruise tourists (mostly American and some Russians) were crawling all over town. The casino was open during the day and entry was €10 which was given to you in chips. They checked ID and you got an entry ticket with your name printed on it. After watching a couple cycles of roulette I decided to throw my chips on the table and make a donation to the casino. I lost both times. We were somewhat puzzled buy this one guy we watched drop €2000 twice. It took less than 5 minutes. Going by stereotypes he was undoubtedly Italian. Tamara wondered if he was playing for the house, I was not sure as it seemed unlikely to have some guy come all the way from Italy (30km) just to play with house money. Why would you gamble that money in Monaco during the middle of the day when the casino is filled with cruise ship tourists?
The rest of the pictures are here. A few other things to note about Monaco. It is it's own country, or principality as they call it. They use the Euro and many prices are also quoted in French Francs, similar to what I occasionally see in Italy. The adjective form of Monaco is Monegasque. As small as Monaco is, there are in fact several towns, villages or divisions of which Monte-Carlo is probably the best known. There is no border guard to worry about when entering the country however we did see a cop stopping people and apparently doing identity checks.
That was stop 2 on my tour of 5 Europe's smallest countries. Next week is the Holy See (Vatican City).
Since Monaco is built on a hillside and land is at an extreme premium the streets are awfully narrow. We found parking without too much trouble. Surprisingly enough parking in Monaco is cheap. Only €4.20 for the afternoon. I can't do that in Toronto. Lunch was nice. My tongue was not working however. The waiter was talking to me in French, I was understanding what he was saying but my brain was automatically trying to respond in bad Italian. It struck me as odd that the change from lunch consisted of Euro coins from three or four different countries.
After lunch we wondered around a while. Toward the waterfront we came across this sign:
I think it might turn into a usericon.
We did what James Bond would do and went to the Monte-Carlo Casino. Not surprisingly there was a nice assortment of cars in front. For whatever reason the majority were Porsches although there was a Maserati, and a Smart forfour mixed in with the BMWs and Mercedes. This is classic though, I wonder how much money you have to drop in the casino to get the Courtesy Porsche.
This was actually the first time I have ever stepped foot in a Casino. We were there mid-day which I sure is completely different than at night. There was a cruise ship parked in the harbour and cruise tourists (mostly American and some Russians) were crawling all over town. The casino was open during the day and entry was €10 which was given to you in chips. They checked ID and you got an entry ticket with your name printed on it. After watching a couple cycles of roulette I decided to throw my chips on the table and make a donation to the casino. I lost both times. We were somewhat puzzled buy this one guy we watched drop €2000 twice. It took less than 5 minutes. Going by stereotypes he was undoubtedly Italian. Tamara wondered if he was playing for the house, I was not sure as it seemed unlikely to have some guy come all the way from Italy (30km) just to play with house money. Why would you gamble that money in Monaco during the middle of the day when the casino is filled with cruise ship tourists?
The rest of the pictures are here. A few other things to note about Monaco. It is it's own country, or principality as they call it. They use the Euro and many prices are also quoted in French Francs, similar to what I occasionally see in Italy. The adjective form of Monaco is Monegasque. As small as Monaco is, there are in fact several towns, villages or divisions of which Monte-Carlo is probably the best known. There is no border guard to worry about when entering the country however we did see a cop stopping people and apparently doing identity checks.
That was stop 2 on my tour of 5 Europe's smallest countries. Next week is the Holy See (Vatican City).