We woke up sort of latish on this day and found ourselves already in port in Monte Carlo, the capital of tiny Monaco. I looked out through our balcony and saw the most amazing view, so I stepped outside immediately to take some pictures.
The pictures definitely don't do it justice. There were hundreds of edifices built right into the hills, and so many of the biggest, most beautiful yachts you'll ever wish to see!
And do you know what happened to me to bring you these photos? Well, like I said, I was so excited, I stepped right out onto the balcony - without stopping to throw on any clothes! I looked right, I looked left, and I looked down, and there was no one who could see me. So I was happily snapping away, until I heard from above, "Yeah, I see her." I looked up, and three men were staring from the Lido Deck right down at me!!!! I'm sure I gave a little squeal as I turned heel and scurried back into my stateroom, completely mortified!
It was good for a laugh later, though.
After that, we showered (it was so hot and humid, we were on the two-shower-a-day plan), dressed and went to lunch in the Vista Dining Room. It was our one and only time eating lunch in the dining room, I believe. The hours were very limited. After a few minutes alone at the table for four, a nice, retired (of course) couple from Mexico were seated with us. We chatted throughout the meal and had a good time. I ate a grilled peach with feta for an appetizer and a very messy crab sandwich for the main event. Rob had coconut shrimp and some yummy chicken.
After lunch, we went down to the Front Desk to get some postcard stamps. Between all the postcards I sent (I say "I" because Rob wrote a total of four, which I'd bought in Barcelona, and he didn't write them until near the end of the trip!) and the stamps to send them, we spent a small fortune. Be prepared to have a postcard budget, if you're so inclined. Whew!
Then we headed to the Vista Lounge to wait for our tour of Nice and Eze (nice and easy, get it??), in France. All the tours congregated in the Lounge at the meeting time stated on the excursion tickets, and then we rushed out the side door en masse when our tour was called, to get our bus sticker and meet our guides. In the lounge, 70s Dude was back! Today he wore white clothes with black sneakers, and his glasses perched at the front of his head, just above his eyes. What a cool dude. Plus there was a new guy: Knee-Socks Dude! He wore white knee socks with his shorts. It was awesome.
Today's tour guide was Linda, from the Netherlands. We missed getting a picture of her, but here's the bus driver. He was Italian. Which was fine, since in addition to Dutch and English, Linda spoke Italian, Spanish, French and probably 80 other languages. I'm so jealous of, uh, Europeans' multilingualness. I wish I were fluent in 10 languages!
A French street sign, heading into one of many, many tunnels we encountered.
The beautiful homes in hills along the Le Côte d'Azur ("the blue coast", maybe better known to you as the French Riviera?)
I forget which was which, but Linda pointed out the homes of Greta Garbo, Bono from U2, Elton John, and Somerset Maugham!
Just couldn't get enough of the sight of the homes built into the hills and that blue Mediterranean water!
So pretty
More yachts
The beautiful marina
More of the scenery from our bus
Doesn't that just make you want to dive in? Or at least rent a boat and sail the world? Ahh, it was divine.
So picturesque...which was a good thing, because it was a long drive!
Cool French apartment building
One of many such outdoor carousels we found in Europe
Little French children, on their way to the park!
A pretty fountain in Nice
On a gate of an apartment building
I just loved all the pretty colors of the different buildings!
Something about the colors, the shutters open to let in the summer air, just screamed "French Riviera" to me!
Rob must have been taken with the camo painting on this motorcycle.
He probably meant this to share with his auto-crazy buddies, but here it is on the blog, anyway!
A wittle French puppers, at the entrance to the famous Nice Flower Market.
Our guide, Linda, walked us from the drop-off point to the Flower Market, and then she gave us about an hour free time to do as we wished before coming back to the bus. And you MUST come back to the bus right on time, because they will wait no more than five minutes before taking off without you! We had a few tag-alongs on our bus who had miss their own at the pick-up point.
Beautiful orchids greeted us at the beginning of the large, open-air Flower Market. I think the shop-owner must have thought we were nuts, standing there taking pictures of her flowers!
Oh, we were so very hot and sweaty, especially Yours Truly (I have always been a big sweat-er and am so envious of those who are not!), so the first thing we did was sit at a café and have a drink. Rob ordered a Coke, and I asked for juice - not having any clue what I would get. It ended up being a small green bottle of regular orange juice. Which was fine, it served the purpose.
We were outside, under the awning, but the inside was behind Rob. All the cafés, or "bars" as they are known in much of Europe, had an indoor and an outdoor component and were lined up so close right next to each other that sometimes you weren't sure in which restaurant you were dining!
At lots of the "bars," the check was delivered in some kind of small cup or bucket. I guess you were supposed to put your money in the cup, too, but we usually just handed it to the person. Even though, every single time, they looked at us like we were trés stupid Americans! And here, you see what a 5€ looks like. Yes, that is 10€, almost $20 USD for two drinks! It's extremely expensive in Europe, especially coming from a place with such a weak economy right now. They pay roughly $12/gal (about 1,56€ per liter) for gas!
After our drink stop, we roamed in and out of the flower market, looking at the beautiful wares.
Of course later, when I asked Rob why he didn't buy me some of these beautiful roses (because it's not like he had taken me on a European cruise or anything!), he reminded me that I was in possession of all the Euros, and he didn't want to have to ask for money to buy me something. He also had to ask for some money to use the public restroom - they almost always cost about a half-Euro, give or take. Whoops. I made sure, from that day on, that we both had some Euro bills and coins in our pockets.Those darn flowers probably cost too much, anyway!
Another pretty apartment building, at the endof the Flower Market.
We came across this old man on the street, crocheting faster than I could even imagine - he had to be five times faster than I can do it, and I'm not slow! Of course, we paid him for the picture; you must be prepared to do so for any pictures of people you want to take. But he did beautiful work, and it was nice to see a man doing it.
We did a little shopping after that. I had to buy all my prizes for Bunco in Europe, and I wanted to bring back enough prizes for all the ladies. I went way over budget, but I didn't care, because it was fun! The first place we shopped was a jewelry store, where the shopkeeper made all her own jewelry. She had necklaces made from coconut beads strung up thickly on dowels, tension-hung on the walls. Well. I wanted to look at one certain necklace (which Stephanie ended up winning at Bunco!), but when I lifted it up, the whole dowel full of necklaces fell to the floor, clanging on pots she had stacked on the steps below! Oh, my! Everyone in the store stared at me, and I just clapped my hands over my mouth in shock. Yes, I embarrass myself frequently! I started in with, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," but the lady was extremely nice and told me not to worry about it. She wouldn't even let me pick them up, telling me it happens all the time and she needed to find a new system. But still. Wasn't I already mortified once that day?
This picture was from a store also selling its own products, fresh olive oil, lavender sachets, milled soaps, foods, and so on. Rob wanted to call his brother (a chef and owner of his own restaurant in Missouri) and ask him if there was something he'd like for him to bring back, but it was the middle of the night at home. So he skipped it. I bought some French milled soap for another Bunco prize; it was lovely.
Inside the same store. When Rob went to take multiple photos, the cashier called out to him, "Un photo, Monsieur, un photo!" Too late.
Going along the coast, again, on the way to Eze (pronounced "Ez")
Another cool apartment building - apparently I like architecture? This I did not know.
A Russian Orthodox church - built in France!
The European traffic is so different from ours. You just don't see the plethora of SUVs, minivans, and pick-up trucks that you do here in the States. Almost everyone drives a hatchback - if not a scooter or motorcycle - and there are even these "smart cars" that are like a regular sedan, cut in half. Just a front seat and that's it. I think I took a picture of one later in the trip, which you'll see.
Rob was amused by this butcher's sign!
Finally we made it to Eze, where we decided to diverge from the tour that went up the hill to a scenic overlook. Eh, scenic schmenic - we were more interested in seeing how the French lived, and when we spotted a "Casino" grocery store, that was our chance! It was just so cool to wander up and down the aisles and see how French food is packaged and presented, what they eat, and so on. Here, some chicken breast. And mine. Heh.
Lots of crackers on the shelves. Again, the employees must have thought we were nuts. Crazy American tourists!
Eggs are just kept on a regular shelf, unrefrigerated! I guess people must have their own containers in which to bring them home?
In the end, Rob bought a French beer, and I bought a guava-flavored slurpee-type thing to drink, and Rob selected these Lay's brand (yes!) chicken-and-thyme flavored potato chips. We sat on a wall and enjoyed our goodies, waiting for the rest of the tour to come back down the hill, watching the natives walking around their town. And the verdict? The chips were very good! After my first bite, I exclaimed, "Wow! It's like Thanksgiving in a bag!" We don't know why the chicken chips aren't popular in North America, but if you see them, try them!
Oh yes, we also bought this strawberry juice to try. It was good, but it was much too sweet, tasting like liquid strawberry jam. I would have bought a much smaller bottle if I'd known; in the end, we accidentally left it behind in our stateroom fridge, having had barely more than this by the end of the trip. We also bought some chocolate candies, with toys inside, for the children.
Look! A wee French bug! Hey, it was interesting at the time...
Just before getting on our bus, I spotted another bar that had souvenirs inside. Well, of course I must collect my souvies. Whenever I go anywhere, I try to get a spoon, shot glass, keychain and magnet. I found these for both France and Monaco. I also bought a junior racing team button-down shirt for Jack (since he probably wouldn't have liked a Flamenco dress) and spent about 75 Euros on the lot! Yeah. Crazy expensive.
On the way home back to the ship, we saw the football (soccer) stadium of Monaco, and the race tracks where you can rent a Ferrari for 100Euros - for just one lap!
After the tour, we came back and went to dinner with some very nice but pretty quiet Haitians and Jamaicans. I tell you this because on the other, Western Hemisphere cruises I've been on, you're more likely to ask "What state are you from?" than "What country are you from?" and since we were able to eat with people from different nationalities almost every time, I thought you might find it interesting, too. These folks now also resided in NYC, like the Russians.
I had a Dutch shrimp cocktail (which meant lots of little baby shrimpies instead of large ones), blackberry soup (I had a cold, fruity soup almost every night), and yucky potato-leek pie stuffed to the gills with mushrooms. Blech! Rob had slices of duck for an appetizer, pea and pork soup (ew), and a puff pastry filled with mushrooms and chicken. We have very different tastes, but we know each other pretty well and made a game every night of selecting what the other person was going to have. We were right much of the time!
That night was the one and only night there was a towel animal on our bed. This was the nightly thing on my other cruises, so I was surprised. We did always get chocolates on our pillows.
I crashed after dinner, and slept so long we missed that night's show. But it was okay - it was purported to be a famous Australian woman singing, but the Aussies we met later had never heard of her. So, yeah, your typical cruise ship entertainer, probably. Meanwhile, Rob read his book (we each brought books given to us by his mom), drank some cocktails, and puttered around online. I hesitate to tell you what we paid for internet access. It was not cheap. But it was definitely worth it to be able to keep in constant touch with Steph and the kids!
Tomorrow: Stay tuned for Livorno!
Fin.
Hey! What day are we on now? Sounds like fun!
Posted by: Stephanie | July 13, 2008 at 12:18 AM
Ah! So fun! I am desperately, desperately wanting to go again- already! (But no go with the crappy economy.) I am LOVING your pictures and reading about your experiences! Aren't the chip flavors so funny? Ham and Chicken, etc? And the cars- yes! Garrett would yell every time he saw a Smart Car.
I am so glad you had such a great time. Were you freaking about the kids, or were you ok since you knew Stim were taking great care of them?
Posted by: Sarri | July 13, 2008 at 12:22 AM
Hi Melanie - I'm thoroughly enjoying reading your posts. The photos are superb and am now feeling that I'd like to travel to see such beautiful places. Will look forward to tomorrow's post.
Posted by: Dorothy in Australia | July 13, 2008 at 12:56 AM
So jealous. How I would love to see the Cote d'Azur in person. Btw, I am totally obsessed with the Smartfortwo. Too cute!
Posted by: Nadine | July 13, 2008 at 09:57 AM
Unfortunately not all the pictures showed up for me. Not sure why, but I did see some and the ones of the houses on the coast of the Meditteranean are just gorgeous! I'm so jealous! It looks absolutely amazing! That was a funny story about taking pictures naked--it does seem like a very European thing to do! ;-)
Posted by: Jen | July 21, 2008 at 01:27 AM
Never mind, the pics showed up here when I went to comment. Great photos! I'm really enjoying reading about your trip.
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