Mallorca, Spain

You may have noticed that the blogging has been a bit behind. October was a pretty crazy month, culminating with a 2 week visit from my mom and her friend Cindy. They arrived on Saturday the 17th, and the next day they left for a trip to Paris, and we left for a trip to Mallorca, an island off the east coast of Spain. Our next post will be devoted to Mom's visit - this one will just cover our quick weekend to Spain.

Sunday, October 18th

We left really early on Sunday since this was going to be such a short trip, and were in our rental car on the island by about 10:30. Its a small island, with the main city of Palma in the northwest, but with several sites to see all along the north coast. We decided to take the main highway across the island to the east, and work our way back toward Palma via the scenic route.

Our first stop was the Cap de Formentor, a cape at the far northeast tip of the island. The drive was a nice twisty route through the mountains along the coast to the far point of the island where they have a lighthouse. The coast was really beautiful, and the views around the cape were fantastic.
Our next stop was the Monastery of Lluc. This is a place of pilgrimage for many for its famous statue of Mary. We toured around the grounds and saw the main chapel that held the statue. It wasn't the most impressive statue we've ever seen. We definitely would have been disappointed if we'd made the trip just to see this, but it was a nice stop along the way.

Our next planned stop was the small coastal town of Deia. This was supposed to be a be a beautiful little town with great views of the mountainsides and the sea. As we pulled into town, though, we realized that the place must have been in every other guidebook as well. We were really surprised because it was outside of the main tourist season, but the town was packed. There were probably less than 50 parking spaces in the town, and every one of them was full. And outside of town, the roads were so narrow that it was impossible to park there. We ended up driving through the town three times looking for a spot before we just gave up, stopped in the middle of the road (holding up traffic) and took a few pictures before moving on.

The next stop was the town of Valldemosa. The main attraction here is an old monastary turned private residence where Frederic Chopin spent a winter with his lover, writer George Sand (female). They apparently had a miserable time and she wrote a book all about it. The place happened to be closed when we were there, but we got a few pics of the outside. The most memorable part of the town, though, was the Coques de Patata, a bread made potato. It was delicious. It tasted like homemade rolls that my mom and grandma make back home, but have the added delight of being topped with powdered sugar (just a thought, Mom). Yum!!!!

Our last stop on our northern route was to La Granja - a one time Moorish farm that evolved into a monastery and then eventually the home of a wealthy family - and this place turned out to be one of the more interesting places we've seen on all our travels.

It was in our Top 10 Mallorca book (our friend Rick doesn't cover Mallorca), as was nearly every other stop we made in the weekend, so we thought it must be worth a stop. This was a fully functioning home, meaning that they were fully self-sufficient. This included farms, gardens, and livestock of course, but also an olive oil press, a winery, a distillery, and even a dentist's office. Oh yeah, and I guess I shouldn't forget to mention the torture chamber.

We walked through the entire grounds and house, and it was just crazy. We didn't see a single in employee after we got past the entrance. For that matter, we only saw 4 other tourists in the entire place. There was very little information other than the titles of the rooms, but we saw the living rooms, game rooms, children's theatre including box seats for the dolls, doctor's/dentist's office, kitchens, etc, etc. There was really just too much to mention - just look at the pictures we have attached if you want more details. Or maybe make the trip to be astonished for yourself!

This was our last stop on our great driving adventure, so we headed to the hotel. It was in S'Arenal, on the outskirts of Palma, and literally 2 minutes from the beach. We had a little walk on the beach before heading to a local place for some paella - if you remember from Barcelona, rice with lots of spices, chicken, and various types of seafood. Delicious!!

Monday, October 19th

This was a fairly light day, spent mostly in the main city of Palma. We started with an early morning walk on the beach. It was warm enough that we could go without our jackets, but not exactly warm enough to justify a swim. We sat for a while and watched the waves before heading into town to see the sites. Our first stop was the Castell de Bellver, which is a castle at the top of the main hill in the city. It was never used for defense, but was a royal residence. It is a round castle with an empty plaza in the center. It was 2 stories tall, with museums in the rooms on both floors. The museums were interesting enough, having artifacts from the various people who have run the island - Romans, Moors, and Spaniards. The main thing that made the trip up the hill, though, was the view over the whole city, the ocean, and the surrounding mountains.

After leaving the castle, it was about lunch time and was pretty warm, so we decided to head to the beach. Not ideal beach weather, but we grabbed our standard picnic sandwiches and sat for a couple of hours, enjoying the sporadic sunshine and the waves. By mid afternoon, the clouds had started to roll in and it got pretty chilly, so we headed back into town to finish our site seeing.

We went into Palma's main attraction, its cathedral. There is a pretty nice "park" - concrete slab with several palm trees and a pond/fountain - at the bottom of the hill that the cathedral sits on. It offered some great views, especially as the sun was going down and they turned the lights on.

The inside was pretty nice as well - parts were completed by the architect/artist/designer Gaudi (see more in Barcelona post). There were also several rose stained glass windows which were probably the most vibrant we've ever seen. They were restored a few years back, and people actually complained that they did too good of a job because the colors were too bright! We thought they were crazy.
We spent a little while wandering through the church, then wandered a little while through the streets of the downtown. There wasn't a ton going on, but it was nice to just stroll down the main boulevard and pop into the occasional shop. We finished the evening sitting in the park under the cathedral as the sun went down and our trip came to a close.

Prague

Correction: This post refers to the "Old Town" and "New Town" of Prague. While both do exist, I screwed up the references. The New Town is actually right next to the Old Town, and contains the likes of Wencelsas Square. What I referred to as the "New Town" throughout this post actually refers to the Castle Quarter, the area on the west bank of the river. Sorry!!!

Most of our travels so far have stayed in Western Europe. We really want to make it further east at some point (Poland and Russia are high on our wish list), but those are a little further down on the list. We were able to take a short weekend trip (45 hours door to door, to be exact) to Prague, in the Czech Republic. Although not quite Eastern Europe (I think it is officially "Central"), this is different from the likes of Rome and Paris.Saturday, October 3rd

Since we were making such a short trip of it, we knew we needed to leave as early as possible. When we booked our 6:15 flight, though, we didn't think about just how early we'd need to get up. Because the trains don't come too often that early, we had to catch a 4:08 train, which meant our day started before 3am. On the way to the station, we actually ran into several people making their way home from their various Friday activities.

When we step off the plane in each new country, we like to check the place off our list by one of us giving a resounding, "Check!!" Possibly the most memorable moment from this trip is the look on Jenna's face after she said it, then quickly realized that what she actually meant was, "Czech!!"

It took a little while to get through the airport and into town, but by mid morning we had checked into our hotel and were out on the streets. The city is split into an Old Town and a New Town, with a river running through the middle. We wandered through the Old Town a little based on the location of our hotel, but our plan was to see the New Town this day, so we made our way across the Charles Bridge that connects the two.

This bridge was built in the 1300s, and at that time was the only way to cross between Prague Castle (in the New Town) and everything else that sat in the Old Town. The bridge is one of the top attractions in the city, partly due to its age and importance, but also because it is lined with a bunch of statues and just generally looks cool. Unfortunately, at the moment they're doing some renovations, so parts of the bridge are closed off and full of scaffolding, and it is going to stay that for few a few more years. The parts that are open are cool, but the pictures just didn't come out too great with all the construction. We had a great time walking across the bridge and seeing all the people and listening to the street performers along the way!

The main site in the New Town is the Prague Castle, but there were a few things on the way up the hill that it sits on that we stopped at. The first thing was a monastery with a great view over the city. Afterward we stopped by a Jenna must - the Museum of Miniatures. This was a weird little place - they had about 15 different miniature displays, but of the uber miniature sort. Like a chickpea with a copy of the Mona Lisa, or a flea with a tiny padlock around its leg. You had to look through a microscope to see these tiny things. I'm sure it takes a ridiculous amount of skill to make these tiny things, but it seemed like a bit of a novelty.

Our next stop was the Castle, which is really more of a fortress. There is a small city, including a huge Cathedral (the real center point of the castle) and a nice little shopping street. All of it sits on top of a large hill that looks down across the river to the Old Town, and it is is surrounded by castle-type walls.

There were a few things that we saw inside the Castle, like the old shopping street (Golden Lane) and the Old Royal Palace with its great hall - with entrances made to be big enough for horses to enter, so they could have games in the hall. The prize of the Castle, though, was definitely the Cathedral. It was massive and as impressive as many of the cathedrals we've seen throughout Europe.

This stained glass window was very vibrant and apparently an important bit of local art. Made in the 1930s by a local artist at a high point of Czech nationalism, it shows the people coming out of darkness into a light brought by Cyril (who brought Christianity to the area and created the Cyrillic alphabet - think Russian), and St. Wenceslas (who was the first Christian king of the area and is now the patron saint of the Czech people).

This is the tomb of John of Nepomuk, another local saint who was killed by being thrown off the Charles Bridge and drowned at the orders of the emperor The details as to why are sketchy, but the leading thought is that the Queen confessed to him, and the King thought the confession included adultery. When John wouldn't divulge the information heard in the confession, he was put to death. His tomb is made completely of silver - they estimate it to be about 1 ton worth.

There were also all of these beautiful rose windows.

After leaving the castle we headed down the hill and up another big hill (luckily by funicular this time). This hill was supposed to have the best views in the city, and is supposed to be the best place in town to bring a first date. I must say, the views of the city were amazing!

By the time we'd come down off the hill and warmed up a bit with some Starbucks hot chocolate, it was time for dinner. We ate at a local place that served traditional Czech food (working man food - meat and potatoes). After filling up good on chicken and wild boar (you can guess who ordered what), we strolled through some parts of the Old Town in the moon and street lights. We made our way to the main square where we thought we'd watch the famous astronomical clock strike 10:00. We gathered with about 100 other tourists and waited about until about ten minutes past before we gave and went back to the hotel, where we found out that the clock only does its thing (see definition of "thing" below) until 9:00 at night. Somewhat defeated, we headed to bed...

Sunday, October 4th

Sunday was our Old Town day. We started off with a decent free breakfast from the hotel before heading back into the main square. This time, we did get to watch the famous clock strike the hour. It is astronomical, so I guess it shows all kinds of extra information like what astronomical sign it is, when the sun is supposed to rise/set, etc. We pretty much couldn't tell what it said, even the time. We had to look at our watches to tell when it was going to ring! When it does ring, it puts on a nice little show. Death comes out, flips an hourglass, and starts ringing his bell. At the same time, each of the 12 disciples roll past to show their faces while 3 heathen sinners hang their heads as they apparently face their judgement. At least that is what I got out of it (with a little help from the guide book). The other interesting thing with this clock is that it shows what "Saint's Day" it is. If you happen to not know, most non-Protestant Christian faiths devote each calendar day to a specific saint (like St Patrick's Day or St Valentine's Day), and this clock will give you a reminder of whose day today is.

Our original plan was to spend the morning in the Jewish district. Leading up to WW2, prior to the atrocities of the death camps, the Jews in the city were forced into the worst area of town. They built up several little sites that are supposedly worth a visit, but unfortunately for us the weekend of our trip was a Jewish holiday, and everything was closed. We had a walk around the neighborhood and tried to peek in some of the sites, but ended up spending significantly less time there than planned.

We headed back to the main square in the old town and walked through the various stalls that made up the market there. We then headed into the cathedral on the square, where we were actually fortunate enough to catch the end of a service. We then toured through the church a bit before heading back out to the square to enjoy a nice meal of brats/chicken skewer (Aaron/Jenna) and peasant's potatoes (small potatoes grilled with cheese and onions). It was pretty delicious!

Since we didn't get to the Jewish Quarter, we had quite a bit of extra time, and were able to make it to the Museum of Communism. After WW2, Czechoslovakia fell under communist rule, and this museum is a kind of memorial to that era. Maybe memorial is a bad word for it - the museum was created more as a reminder of what life was like, and to let everyone know that things are much better now. It was a very interesting museum, having tons of information on the history of how the communists came to power, and what life was like. They had recreated sections of a school, a factory, and a general store, and it was interesting to see what it was like and learn a little bit about what it would have been like to live there.

They also had a lot of the museum devoted to the Velvet Revolution - the name they've given to the fall of communist rule in Czechoslovakia because it happened peacefully, without a single blow (sort of - there were definitely some scuffles in the streets between the people and police). Anyway, there were no major conflicts, but after several days of protests by the people, the government leaders simply stepped down. You get a piece of it in school, but the focus is always in Russia and the Berlin Wall. It was really good to get a perspective from one of these smaller communist nations.

By the time we finished with the museum, it was nearing our time to leave. We spent a little more time wandering through the streets to get a little more appreciation for the beauty of this city, which miraculously came out of WW2 nearly completely unscathed. We walked back through the Old Town Square and through some of the quaint side streets before making our way back to the airport.

Miscellany

We generally focus on the big trips and events, but during that time the little things accumulate, so we thought we might put together a few of the memorable things we've done lately that don't deserve their own posts.

Concerts

One of the great things about living in such a major city is that pretty much any major concert tour makes its stop here. The problem is that in a city so big, they tend to sell out right away. We were lucky enough to be on Ticketmaster first thing for two that we really wanted to see though, and got great tickets for Both U2 and Coldplay at Wembley Stadium.

U2 was about everything you'd think it would be. They are probably the biggest rock band on the planet and led by one of the most recognizable names in music, the one and only Bono. Aside from the fact that they've put out some great music in the past 20 years, we also have a lot of respect for what the band does with their popularity - getting involved in a lot of charitable causes. The show was incredible. The stage was something between a space ship and a giant spider - I don't think it would fit in any stadium that didn't have a open top. They played all their best songs, except of course Jenna's favorite (The Sweetest Thing). We didn't have the best seats (they looked mostly like ants), but luckily their ridiculous stage had a giant screen that made things a little more visible. Anyway, not sure why we've never made it to one of their shows before, but we'll definitely try to catch them again.

Coldplay was also very good. Like U2 they are a British band, and their lead singer Chris Martin (a household name here) is married to American actress Gwyneth Paltrow. U2 is a little pretentious, thinking they're about the best band ever (which, to be honest, they have an argument for), and as such they had two no-name English bands open for them. Coldplay on the other hand still has a little humility, and had two big openers. First was Girls Aloud, which is a Spice Girls type band that is really big here but probably hasn't quite picked up across the pond. We didn't care much about them so we skipped it. The 2nd opener was Jay-Z, probably the biggest name in rap music. It was a pretty odd choice, but apparently he and Gwen are good friends, and he and Coldplay collaborated on a song on Coldplay's newest album. Anyway, it wasn't necessarily "our type of music", we did know a few of the songs, and he put on a super-high energy show. When he walked off the stage it felt like the show should be over, and we still had the main act!



They also put on a really great show. They are pushing their new album, so it was pretty heavy on the new stuff. That was okay, since we like most everything on the new album, but they also did mix in a lot of their older stuff, including dropping in about 50 huge "yellow" beach balls for the song that made them famous. They also did not sing Jenna's favorite song, Bonus Track! Again, one that we'd definitely go back to.

Greenwich



Greenwich (pronounced "grin-itch"), is a town on the Thames that used to be just east of London, but has now been swallowed by the city, and is actually quite central. We had a free Saturday in September and decided to spend the afternoon there.


This is the home of the famous Prime Meridian - 0 Degrees Longitude. It is also the home to GMT - Greenwich Mean Time - essentially ground zero for how we tell time. Officially, all time zones are given a time of GMT plus "x", So CST is actually just GMT + 6:00. As such, there is a big conservatory here. Apparently there was a lot that went into determining the longitudes. It has a lot to do with the rotation of the earth and time and a bunch of other scientific stuff, and it was all very important to navigation and seafaring. The conservatory had a little museum that explained it all, but to be honest we didn't understand it too much or care. We pretty much just wanted to say that we stood on, or stradled, the Prime Meridian...which we did.


The picture above is supposedly the line of the meridian leading up to a sculpture of the globe.

The 4th Plinth


Trafalgar Square is a major landmark in London - a large open square in front of the National Gallery art museum. When it was built, the plan was to put statues at the corners of the square. They built all four plinths (fancy name for the base that the statue sits on). They put up three of the statues, but for whatever reason they didn't have the money to build the fourth. They held off for several years, and by the time the money was available, the powers that be couldn't decide on which king/general/rich guy to put up there. While they were deciding, they started putting up temporary statues, and apparently it stuck.


For some time now, they've been putting statues that were on tour or waiting for a permanent home or whatever on a short term basis. So, the 4th Plinth has become famous as either a place to see something on display short term (usually a piece of art work as opposed to a classic statue), or to see an empty plinth.


A local artist named Anthony Gormley recently came up with a great idea for the plinth. (He was also a professor to Jenna's brother Hesse when he got his master's in Switzerland.) He decided that it would be nice to put the "normal man" up there. I think it is supposed to be something about the importance of the standard citizen - something along the lines of them being as important as the guys who stand on the other 3 plinths. Anyway, his plan came to fruition, and for 100 days from July to October, for 24 hours a day, some random person was standing on the plinth (anyone could apply online, and they were selected at random). Each person got 1 hour (that means 2400 people) to do whatever they wanted. A lot of the people were trying to bring awareness to some cause or another. Others tried to just have a fun time or show off in some way. We made our way past the plinth a couple times in the 100 days, and here is a recap of the ones we saw:

Chiari Malformation - Lady bringing attention to this rare sort of brain malformation. Not really sure but I guess it affects balance? Her presentation worked at least a little, because we'd never heard of it, and now we have.

Bingo! - This guy had assistants in the crowd who handed out bingo cards. He then drew out balls and called numbers with a megaphone. It was fun, but we didn't stick around long enough to win a prize.
Lady with crazy pink wig and swimsuit dancing - This lady was, well, wearing a crazy pink wig and a swimsuit and danced around. She was promoting families taking vacations in England.

Fisherman - He sat in a chair and...fished. Get Hooked on Fishing is a mentoring program for children while fishing.

Lady (we think) wearing a big eye - She was trying to speak for the blind. She also tried to throw balls out into the crowd, presumably with information on them. Ironically, the giant eye made it so she couldn't see, so the balls didn't get out to the crowd too well.

Indian Elvis - By far our favorite. It was 9:00 at night. He told us that he only found out about being on the plinth 24 hours earlier. In his short time to plan, he came up with dressing up like Elvis and singing his songs. He only had an iPod connected to a cheap boombox, so the sound wasn't great. Also, he obviously didn't know all the words, because he was using a clipboard with the lyrics. It was hilarious, though - his thick accent singing these songs by The King was great. The crowd got really into it - especially one crazy guy who was running around and dancing and singing like he was the main attraction. Anyway, we'd planned to stay fro 5 minutes, and ended up watching this guy for 30.

Windsor

Windsor is the official residence of the Queen, and at 800 years old it is the oldest occupied castle in the world. If you've been reading, we were thwarted in our first attempt to visit when they closed the entrance five minutes early. This time, we had a free Saturday, and devoted the whole of the day to getting out there.

It was an interesting visit. There's a big mix between the castles that you see everywhere else that are simply tourist attractions, and the palaces that you see everywhere else, that are super fancy. On the outside it looks like your standard castle, but on the inside it is very palatial, fitting of the fact that the Queen and her family do spend a lot of time here. It is supposed to be the Queen's favorite of all her homes, so she's there quite often. She was actually there the day we visited, but didn't happen to be greeting guests.

Could go into a lot of detail about all the stuff we saw - royal apartments, the grounds and gardens, and the chapel, but I'm sure people don't care that much, and this post is starting to run pretty long, so...

The French Riviera

After a summer spent bundled up in Ireland and England, it was finally time to get away to the sun and the sand. Our destination: the French Riviera on the Southeastern coast.

Friday, September 11th - Marseilles & Nice

In order to save on the flights, we arrived in Marseilles, which is not officially in the Riviera, but is a couple of hours west. It is the second largest city in France, and we thought it would have a few things for us to do. It was probably a bad omen when we had to find an extra travel book when our Rick Steves' France and Lonely Planet Western Europe didn't cover the city.

Needless to say, we could have lived without Marseilles. We went into the city and saw a few of the major sites - marina, fish market, and a few other forgettable sites. After about an hour, we realized our mistake and headed to the train station to catch a ride to Nice.

We arrived in Nice in the late afternoon, checked into the hotel, and headed out through the town and down to the beach. Nice is a pretty good sized town, and has over a mile of beach front. Unfortunately, that beach is made very rocky, so it isn't the most comfortable. There are several bars on the beach that thrive off charging €15 for a chair, but it seemed like most of the cheapskates, including us, just accepted the pain of the rocks.

We spent about an hour on the beach before our dinner bells started to ring, we decided to have a walk along the main promenade and through the town. Much to our chagrin, we very shortly came across a sandy section of beach - it seemed like they had basically shipped in a bunch of sand and dropped it on top of the rocks. We really wished we had seen that an hour earlier, but we were able to take advantage later in the weekend. We were really confused because there were tons of people laying on the rocks right next to the sandy section, and we could figure out why they didn't move over 50 feet to the comfortable stuff. Maybe the French don't feel pain? Something to look into...

Anyway, after walking along the beachfront and through some of the little shopping neighborhoods, we headed off to dinner. The cuisine here is more Italian than French (lots of pastas, not any snails). The Italian border is only a few miles away, and this section of the country actually used to belong to Italy. Back in the time of Napoleon, Italy was restructuring its provinces and gave the region the choice of what it wanted to be. With the popularity of the French emperor, they went French, but they have kept a lot of the Italian heritage, including the food.

Saturday, September 12th - Antibes

Antibes is another small town nearby - about 20 minutes by train from Nice. This is known as one of the best places in the region for the beach, as it is not quite as big and packed with tourists as other places like Cannes, but it is still a good size town with long, white sand beaches.

It is also home to some ridiculous yachts. The French Riviera is home to some of the richest people in the world. All of the towns have marinas full of the most outrageous boats you've ever seen. This is one of the mid sized ones in Antibes:

The owners of a lot of these boats live far away (like London), so they don't get to use them all the time. As such, a side business of yacht rental exists in the area. One the size of the one above could be yours for the low, low price of $30,000 per week (captain and crew included). We saw lots of yachts during our time in the area, but the largest concentration was here in Antibes, including one so big that it couldn't fit in the marina and had to dock out in the sea. Don't worry, though, the owner could still get to town quickly and easily in the helicopter that was sitting on the boat!!

Antibes was incredibly relaxing and really just great. We literally did nothing here other than sit on the beach. We slept in, had a late breakfast, caught a mid-morning train, went straight to the beach, and didn't leave until dinner time. Jenna was in heaven, I dealt with it. Not exactly my ideal vacation, but it was relaxing to just sit and read, nap, and people watch, and I was able to break it up with the occasional trip to grab lunch or drinks.

For dinner we headed into the town, just away from the beach, and had some more great Italian food in the cellar of a nice little restaurant. The place was cool as the basement seemed like it was a cave cut out of the rocks. it also didn't hurt that the food was really good - pizza for Aaron and pesto for Jenna. Yum!! It was a perfect end to this very relaxing day.

Sunday, September 13th - Nice, Monaco, and Villefranche

We didn't have a ton to do on Sunday, so we headed to the beach in Nice first thing. We grabbed the small patch of sand mentioned above, and hung out until lunch time. For lunch we went to the town's market square to grab some Socca. This is a local specialty, made by only one place, and people literally line up to get it. It is basically a crepe, but made out of chickpeas and quite a bit thicker than the crepes you'd find elsewhere in France. We heard that they do run out, so we go there at 12:15 (early lunch for Europe) and waited. Lucky we got there when we did, because after 45 minutes, we got the very last portion. We even ended up having to share, since they couldn't give us the 2 portions we'd ordered. It was pretty good, but to be honest we probably wouldn't eat it again, especially considering the trouble you have to go through.

After lunch we went off to visit Nice's Russian Cathedral. Back in the 1800s, Nice was the spot for European aristocrats to take their holidays, and it was very popular with the Russians trying to get away from the terrible weather. Since they would spend months at a time here, they needed a place to worship, so an Orthodox church was built. It was very interesting to see, as of course it is very different from the standard cathedral you see everywhere else.

After checking out the church, we hopped on the train to Monaco. This you'll probably know as the home to the most famous and extravagant casino in the world - the Monte Carlo. Monaco itself is actually its own separate country - the 2nd smallest in the world next to the Vatican. 800 years ago a man snuck into the town, killed of the ruling family, and established himself Prince of the small region. Today, his great, great, great........great grandson is the prince, making it the oldest surviving ruling family in the world.

Monaco is a world of excess. The marina was outrageous - boats bigger than my college dorm and our current flat. There are 30,000 residents, but only 1/3 are real natives - the rest have just moved there for the tax breaks (0% income tax). The per capita income is also the highest in the world. It was really just kind of ridiculous. Parked in front of the casino (mind you in the middle of a Sunday afternoon), we saw a Lamborghini, and Aston Martin, 2 Bentley's and 7 Ferraris. There were also several Mercedes and other nice cars that we could never dream to own, but paled in comparison to their neighbors. This is definitely the land of the haves, and the have yachts!!

We spent about 30 seconds in the actual casino. It was really disappointing, because they charge a €10 cover charge to even get in the door. We didn't have any money to lose, so we didn't want to gamble, but we did want to see the casino floor. We were unwilling to pay a cover to enter, though, so we peeked our heads in as much as possible and then turned around and left. Guess the cover charge works, because it kept at least 2 people out that day who didn't belong.

Overall, we weren't super impressed with Monaco. Yes, it was very nice, and the boats and casino and everything were something to see. It was also nice to check yet another country off the list. But in all, unless you plan to actually go and gamble, there isn't really much to see or do, so we left filling pretty unfulfilled. Maybe some day when we're rich and famous we'll dock our yacht next to the Lady Moura, valet our Rolls at the front, and spend an evening rolling the dice, but until that day comes, I don't see us making it back to Monaco.

When we left it was about time for dinner, so we headed to another nearby town - Villefranche Sur Mer. We had a little walk along the beach here before going into town to eat. We ended up at an overpriced touristy place, but the food was decent and there really aren't any restaurants other than that anyway. The dinner was so-so, but after dinner was great. The town has a small footpath leading along the water, through part of the town, and past the marina. It was a beautiful evening and a very romantic walk, made even better by the gelato that we picked up before we started. A wonderful way to end the day and a huge pick-me-up from the downer of Monaco.

Monday, September 14th - More Nice

The last day of our trip was literally spent doing nothing again. We got up late and headed to the sandy section of Nice's beach. We stayed there all day, had a picnic lunch, read, slept, etc. It was a great way to end the vacation. It was a full day at the beach - our flight wasn't until late in the evening - but I really don't have anything to say about the day other than that we spent it in the sun.

In all this was a great vacation. Somehow this post has turned out to be pretty long, but it really felt like we didn't do a single thing while we were there. And to be honest, that was wonderful.