2004 Europe

Nice Flower Market



May 5 – Well here we are, in Monaco, on Cinco de Mayo and ‘Surprise, surprise, surprise!’ there’s not an enchilada in sight. Today we hobnob with the ‘rich and famous’. We had to tender into the port and the process took a long time as the sea was rough and it was difficult for older people to get on the tender as the ship and the tender were often moving in opposite directions at a fairly high rate of speed and as much as four feet up and down.



After arriving on shore we boarded the bus to Nice, France. Crossing the border between Monaco and France is easy. In fact it’s hard to know when you are in one or the other. We drove south out of Monaco on the lower cornice. There are three roads connecting cities on the north coastal area, the upper, middle and lower cornices. The lower passes right through Monte Carlo. In fact, we got on it just south of there. Each of the cornices is built right into the cliff face between the towns they go through and the lower and middle are very scenic. We passed through Bealeau (‘Beautiful View’, and it was) and Villefranche, one of the most protected cities on the coast. It was very picturesque but we didn’t stop.



Nice is a large city and we are here to see the morning market. It has stalls with fruit, flowers (above) and miscellaneous goods, like candy (below) etc. It was very colorful. In fact it was hard to say if the flowers or the candy made the most colorful display. All the major French impressionists have painted here as well as most of the other well-known artists. Monet, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Marc Chagall, Degas and Delacroix all painted here. After visiting the market we spent an hour or so just walking around enjoying the sights. Diana, of course, did some shopping. Post cards and guidebooks are her weakness.



We drove north on the middle cornice to go to Eze. The old city portion of Eze is on the top of a hill again. Cars can’t get up there so we had to hike it. Essentially is perched on a rock 1,400 feet over the sea. The city was founded in the 14th century as a Guelph stronghold (the Guelphs were a middle-class merchant party that supported the Papacy during the struggle in the middle ages between the Catholic church and the emperors of Europe). In 1706 the castle was blown up by Louis the XIV because Eze resisted becoming part of France. The city remains as it was and is well restored/preserved. The streets are even narrower and steeper than Les Baux. Its church square was the only place where you could get far enough from the buildings to have a reasonable pic but even there it was a problem. Below you can see Diana with the Eze cat. The town is now a tourist attraction with lots of boutiques and souvenir shops. The buildings remain largely unchanged although they did finally add running water to the old town in 1954.



After scrambling down the hill we drove back into Monaco. The Principality has four sections: the old fortified town of Monaco-Ville (aka The Rock); the Condamine (the port area); Fortvieille (the new town) and Monte Carlo (Mount Charles).



We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking The Rock. The menu included a chef’s salad, the ham was good but the cheese was outstanding, followed by beef and mushrooms with potatoes. The desert was a thin layer of cake under they yellow, French style, vanilla ice cream, topped with chocolate sprinkles. A good lunch in a beautiful location. The maitre d’ from the ship, Yerko, and his wife Liliana were at the restaurant (below). He was the maitre d’ on the Volendam on our Asia-Pacific cruise in 2002 and his wife was traveling with him on that cruise also. When we met in the Lido we immediately recognized each other. I asked if she cruised with him all the time and she said that this was the first time she had been on board since then. That’s The Rock, Monaco-Ville, you see over Liliana’s left shoulder.



Epicurean Note: They use chocolate sprinkles a lot here. They’re no different than the chocolate sprinkles you get at any Baskin-Robins in the States. They were on the crème Brule yesterday too. Unfortunately I associate them with goofy deserts like frozen yogurt and other items more for children. It’s hard for me to take any desert that uses them seriously. I think one of the reasons I don’t like them is that they hold the promise of a dark chocolate flavor experience but the reality is that they have very little flavor at all.



After lunch we went over to Monte Carlo and spent an hour on Casino Square and at the Grand Casino (below). It costs 10 Euro to just get into the casino but I had to do it because I wanted to walk into the main gaming room and say, ”The name is Bond, James Bond!” While I was in there I decided that a chip would be a nice thing to take home, so I went to the cage and asked the cashier for ONE chip of the smallest denomination. His eyebrows went up and he gave me a puzzled look until I said, “Souvenir.” He laughed and said what a novel idea that was. The chip is actually very nice. It’s a plastic disk about two inches in diameter with imbedded gold glitter throughout and a little 5 in the middle. 5 Euro is the lowest denomination they have. That’s about $6 at the current exchange rate. Pretty inexpensive for a Monaco souvenir.



While we waited for the tour to reassemble we walked around looking at the preparations of the Monaco Grand Prix. The time trials start in 10 days and they’re busy putting up the barricades and bleachers. Lots of the advertising is already in place. After a while we decided to have a coffee and sat down in the patio of the Café de Paris. Quite the chic thing to do on the Grand Casino Plaza in Monaco. Diana had a café latte and I had a mocha. The coffees came in cute little cups with two straws of sugar and a glass of water for 10.50 Euro. Now I’m here to tell you that the coffee was good but Dietrich’s is just as good and you get 5 times more coffee for about half the price. At Dietrich’s Diana and I get two medium mochas and two of their giant scones for $10.15, that’s only 8.60 Euro and either of the Dietrich’s coffees are larger than both of these, not to mention the scones. Monaco is definitely more expensive than SoCal and by a big margin.



Next we boarded the bus for the trip across the new city to ‘The Rock’. That’s what the locals call the area of Monaco that is situated on top of a large stone outcropping. No schlepping up the hill here, these people know how to live. First you ride up an escalator, then take an elevator and then another escalator and ‘viola!’, you are at the top. The first building you see when you get off the last escalator is the Oceanographic Institute of Monte Carlo (OIMC), a building of special significance to me. One of the heroes of my youth was Jacques Cousteau. I read his book ‘The Silent World’ as a kid. It’s the story of how he and Philippe Gagnon, for whom Philippe Cousteau was named, invented SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) gear and revolutionized underwater exploration. He lost some of his appeal for me when he turned into an eco-freak in his dotage but I still admire his spirit of adventure. Anyway, a lot of his early exploration was financed by the OIMC and he was the Director of the organization for many years.



Next we strolled along the Ave Saint-Martin, where Princesses Caroline and Stephanie have their villas to the Cathedral where all the Grimaldis are buried. The Grimaldis have rule Monaco since the 15th century. They are buried in a semi-circle hallway behind the cathedral’s altar. One grave had lots of fresh flowers on it. It turned out to be the grave of Princess Grace, the former Grace Kelly. Apparently Prince Ranier has flowers brought there every day. Next we walked over to the cliff face to look down on the new and old cities of Monaco, as well as the port area. We could see all four sections of the Principality from there. I asked a man standing there if he would take our picture with Monte Carlo in the background and it turned out that he was a tourist from Russia. I took his pic with his wife and he took ours (below). We’re sitting on a wall on the eastern edge of The Rock, looking at Monte Carlo across marina. The blue structures to my immediate left are temporary grandstands for the Grand Prix. The track is laid out on the cities streets and runs right along the ocean from just behind our heads, past the blue grandstands below us and then loops back through the city.



After crossing the Plaza of the Palace, what should we find but the Palace itself. It’s not an imposing building on the outside but I was impressed by the fact that Monaco arms its troops with good old American M-16s. I wonder if it was because the Prince is half American and had an American wife. After watching a mini changing of the guard we had some time to stroll around and take in the sights and sounds. The building I liked best on The Rock currently houses the Monaco Museum (below).



After that is was back down the hill and back to the ship. Because the swell was very large tendering in the morning had been a very slow process. During the day the ship moved south to more protected waters in St. Jean Cap Ferrat. We drove south on the lower cornice again to get there. When we arrived at the entrance to Cap Ferrat we had to park the bus and wait for a police escort to the harbor, as tour busses are totally forbidden to drive on the Cape. We did get some very unusual looks from the locals as we drove through the very scenic city in our bus, led by the more than noticeable ‘Policia’ car with all it’s light flashing. We arrived back to late for dinner in the dining room so we ate at the lido BBQ. It was a nice relaxing dinner and somewhere these guys learned to make excellent pork ribs. The grilled shrimp were great too!



The weather was pretty bad through the night with a lot of motion on the shop. Nothing violent but large movement in the pitch and roll aspects.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger