April 1-2
Very sad to see Betsy and crew head back to the states, we traded in our huge minivan-ish rental and got a super small Peugeot. We have about 3.5 weeks before we have to be in Florence and decided that we like the flexibility that having a car will give us. So we piled our stuff into the trunk and the entire back seat and took off for Nice. Michael had been under the weather the past few days, so we were looking forward to some sleep and relaxation. And since we haven’t been in close contact with a child in over five months, when Johnny headed back to the States, he left me with a nasty cold. I can drink tap water in Namibia but hold a baby and apparently I’m toast.
On our way to Nice, we drove up to Andorra to see what’s going on. The answer is: not much unless you like to ski. Everything was really beautiful with picturesque ski towns. We grabbed a pizza from one of the towns and continued the drive.
In an effort to avoid the cold, and continue chasing summer, we continued on our merry little way to the Riviera.
We started one of the many beautiful drives that were coming our way. Not that I noticed. I slept almost the ENTIRE WAY. Michael said it was beautiful. We can all take his word. I did, however, wake up to this incredible moon. Now the picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s blurry and seems much less brilliant than it looked in real life, but here it is anyway:
Looking at this picture makes me want to delete it and any reference I made to the moon in this post because the picture is so pathetic. But too bad. You get a pathetic picture this time around.
We got into Nice late and went straight to bed. The next morning we got up and took a train to Monaco. I had been to Monaco more than 10 years ago with my family, but it was Michael’s first time. We grabbed a 15 minute train that took us through the mountains.
Monaco is… beautiful, and fancy, and expensive! We planned on about 7 hours in the country and it proved to be too many. We went to the famous casino, but they were charging people to enter. Not so the last time I went with the fam. We showed up in fancy dresses and jackets and spent about 15 minutes gambling. My brothers lost their money fast at blackjack and I won about a hundred Euros and took it all off the table immediately. Definitely better to walk away a winner in Monte Carlo!
But Michael and I weren’t dressed up and were definitely not looking to do any gambling, so we just wandered around the lobby before heading out to grab lunch. After lunch, we just spent the rest of the afternoon walking.
We saw this yellow submarine outside the aquarium that was too expensive to enter:
And we got espresso. The picture was to show off my new kicks – Betsy helped me buy them in Barcelona. They’re nonverses and they only cost 10 Euros. Boom! That coffee from Monaco probably cost me more.
So. Fancy.
So that was Monaco. It was beautiful, but not much to do unless you want to burn a ton of cash. And we don’t. We had dinner back in Nice that night and came to the consensus that we preferred Nice to Monaco. It was still fancy, but a little less expensive. The streets were beautiful and active. After being in such a quiet Easter week Spain, it was nice to see people out and about again. That said – we don’t have a single picture from Nice. So use your imagination or google it. It’s nice. Nice is nice.
The next morning we were back on the road. Next stop: Italy!