Thursday 16 May 2019. We are onboard the Marella Dream cruise ship for the week and after leaving Majorca, we have a day at sea and then arrive in Monaco.
That disobedient butler of ours seems to have ignored my stern instruction not to play with my yacht and he's brought it all the way to meet us here in the harbour at Monte-Carlo! I shall have to have words...
Not only that but he's tagged onto a line of others that are being towed out for a day's sailing!
We realise that the Monaco Grand Prix is due to be staged in just ten days and preparations are well under way in order to turn the roads into a racetrack and any bit of open space into a grandstand.
Our way into the town is by walking along the pits lane, overlooking the main bit of track for the start and end of the race. It's too early for any cars to have arrived just yet, but teams are knocking about getting the row of pits sorted and the grandstands are already built up in tiers supported by miles and miles of scaffolding.
We make our way into the main area facing the famous casino by something of a zig-zag route. We made use of lifts and escalators at the railway station in order to climb upwards and then found that the park we were hoping to wander through down to the casino was covered in a huge construction of tiered seating. The photo shows the Cafe de Paris. We stopped for a small bottle of Sprite each, a snip at 8 euros each, but you should expect to pay more when your maitre d' shows you to a table in full dress suit (the maitre d', not the table...) In fact I felt distinctly under-dressed in t-shirt and slacks in this area where Aston Martins, Ferraris and Lamborghinis are the norm and you are not going to turn heads even in a nifty open-top Jag. I felt sure my Mazda 5 MPV might have raised an eyebrow or two though...
Not content with expensive mineral drinks, Miss Franny has me splashing out a fiver for an ice cream! This place is not for the faint of pocket. We were security wanded down just walking into a shopping arcade!
The casino is built onto the Opera House. We didn't go in. I'm not being tied naked into a wicker chair with no seat for anybody. We walked around to the back of the Opera House and found a collection of cars which had been gathered together for some event or other. It was nice to note that British cars made a strong contribution to the display.
We had a wander through the gardens with a great viewpoint over the harbour area, dominated by the Marella Dream.
We realised we must be over the tunnel that is such a feature of the Monaco Grand Prix and walked down to this spot which overlooks the exit from the tunnel.
A lift brought us down to the tunnel itself and I remember that the last time we were here in 1996 there was much work going on in the harbour at the tunnel exit that has now turned into shops, bars and restaurants, seen in the previous photo, along the edge of the harbour.
We descended yet again to the harbour level. Across the harbour is Monaco city, where the royal palace and cathedral can be found. The royal palace can be glimpsed towards the right hand side of the photo.
We returned to the ship and I spent 3 hours doing this from Tides Bar's windows, with a drink or two to while away the afternoon.
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