Monaco

Top - A typical Monaco street

Second - La Casino a Monte Carlo
Third - Monaco's Port

Fourth - Le Palais
Bottom - Monaco

We got up and Rachel went in search of a boulangerie to buy croissants for breakfast. France has loads of boulangeries, it shouldn't have been a problem but after she'd been gone about 15 minutes she called to say she was lost! Ha! Not a boulangerie in sight. Brilliant. She wasn't defeated though and eventually, after having walked the length of Nice, came back with croissants! We then caught the bus to Monaco. We walked from our hotel to la gare routiere and bought a ticket which only cost 1,30 euro! 1,30 for a 45 minute bus journey?! Bargain! Monaco is even cleaner than Nice. It was so small and finding anyone who spoke french was an impossiblity. If you hadn't have told me I would have thought I was in Italy. It was beautifully warm and sunny and everything was so tidy. It almost looked fake. There was no litter, no graffiti. Even the building looked like something out of a dolls house. It was good for a day trip but how you could ever live there is beyond me. There is nothing there except the tourist attractions and a million souvenir shops and restaurants. We went to the palace and saw the guards, we went to the casino and Monte Carlo and walked all around the port which had some huge boats in. I bought some souvenirs - a book about Monaco, some postcards and coasters. We then had lunch in an Italian restaurant which we thought quite appropriate seeing as everyone was speaking Italian (even the tv channels in our hotel were in Italian!). I had a mozzarella and tomato salad with a glass of orange juice. In the afternoon we walked around the port and to the casino before getting the bus back to Nice. The traffic was bad so it took longer but it was getting dark and we were going along the coast and we could see the sun setting and pink/red sky. It was beautiful. When we got off the bus in Nice it was quite cold. We went to the supermarket to buy a bottle opener and then went back to the hotel and I made a cheese and tomato omlette whilst Rachel tried to open the bottle of wine. The cork screw was broken and it got stuck in the cork and no matter how hard we pulled it wouldn't come out. It was the most hilarious thing ever but I guess you have to have been there to find it funny... Rachel was holding the bottle and I was pulling the cork screw. One of us was going to get covered in wine... When the cork finally came out Rachel got a nice wine shower! It was hilarious. I don't think I've ever laughed so much ever. But I guess you have to have been there... After dinner we went to find an internet cafe and then for a walk along the seafront before going home to bed.