JK, September 11 2010: Yesterday was our last full day in France before travelling to Italy. Once again, we awoke before dawn and began our day by reading, before another scrumptious buffet breakfast in the hotel. We considered travelling by boat or scooter before settling on the train to Monaco. Upon arrival, we descended upon the harbourfront, setting a leisurely pace toward the pier and Oceanographic Museum.
The former presented a peak into the luxurious realm of wealthy yachting; the latter an incredible breath of artifacts and memorabilia. In addition to the artistic works of Damien Hirst, the musuem holds replicas of the world's first submarine and diving suits, 3D/stereoscopic photos of early oceanographic and whaling voyages, whale skeletons, fossils, numerous tools such as sextarts and telescopes, and a beautiful aquarium.
We stopped for lunch on the upper terrace (moules et frites) after an hour or so of Jules Verne-evoking leisure. Post-meal we enjoyed an audio guided tour of the Royal Palace, including bedrooms of Louis the XIII and XV, and an exciting armory.
Our peculiar sleeping schedule has left us off kilt, so we bussed it to the beachand promptly passed out for an hour and a half.
We awoke to the near-setting sun, in time for a swim,
before strolling back to the harbour and an Italian dinner of pizza, pasta and rose wine.
before strolling back to the harbour and an Italian dinner of pizza, pasta and rose wine.
(Of course, while in Monaco, we also paused to see the fancy cars and Grand Prix trophies.
One window case held all of the winning engines from past races.)
We nearly slept through our stop on the return train to Nice, and crashed hard as soon as we got in, only to
awake - and remain so - at 3:00 am today!
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