Memorial Day in Monaco

Something about late May and racing seems right. Oh yeah, that's when NASCAR comes to Charlotte. Something inside me told me to go and watch some cars go fast. Well in these here parts their cars are a little different, and they turn right! Not only that, they race on dang gone public roads...

FRIDAY

Well it was one heck of a weekend. I rented a VW Golf with no cruise control (big mistake), a tent, sleeping bag, and a cooler and headed off to Bamberg to pick up my buddy John on Friday. He had to work so we got a late start. Driving down was okay but it was only daylight for about half of the drive. We stopped at Lake Constance which is the largest lake in Germany and borders Austria and Switzerland as well. The real reason for the stop was that we were able to pay American prices at Essos (Exxons) within Germany because of a deal they have with the Army so it costs half as much as paying what the Europeans do.


We arrived in Menton, France at 0230 but all the hotels were booked up. We then tried to look up a campground and the GPS only had one that was up in the mountains through an hour of winding roads. After an exhausting drive down, we set up camp and hit the fartsack at 0430. The place was nice and cheap and in the morning it looked like there was snow on the ground because of this fuzzy stuff that fell from the trees.


SATURDAY

We decided to have lunch in Menton to see what the town looked like in the daytime. We actually thought Menton had the best "beach" scene of the places we saw this weekend. Maybe I could use a tan...


We slept in until 1000 then drove to Nice, France to ensure we had a place to stay and didn't have a repeat of Friday night. We stayed in this decent hotel a block from the beach for a pretty reasonable price.


View of the Mediterranean from our hotel. Don't worry, it wasn't advertised as "ocean view" with a higher price.


We then took the bus and train to Monaco to buy race tickets and partake in race weekend festivities. Monaco is one of the coolest, strangest, and most expensive places I've ever been. I could have spent all weekend just looking at the boats in the harbor, but I didn't want to put John through that.



This picture did not do this boat justice. Notice how tall the mast is in a later picture.


The streets were filled with vendors of all sorts like you would see at a NASCAR race. But the cars driven through those same streets were a little different. Traffic jams consisted of Lamborghini's, Ferrari's, Buggati's, and Maserati's instead of F-150s, Camaro's, etc.


This got John and I thinking we should go car shopping


Looks like they have good fashion sense in Monaco, I miss my jorts...


After gawking at the women and cars we went to find a bite to eat and a few beers. I heard live American music so I insisted we make that our spot. The beers are not only more expensive here, but they are huge and have twice the alcohol content. I thought things were bigger in America?




Royal Family's castle in the background


SUNDAY

We caught the last train back to Nice at midnight and navigated our way through the streets of Nice successfully. The next morning we headed back to Monaco and met our first Americans of the trip. They were in their early-mid 20s and worked for Whirlpool appliances in Milan, Italy. Not a bad gig, huh? Our seats were the cheap ones and the only ones less than 300 euro. For this we got to climb a super steep hill and find a good view. While the seating accommodations left much to be desired the view was spectacular. We could see the "back stretch" or the part facing the bay. Notice the sailboat's mast in this picture.


We had a jumbo screen in our view which helped us keep track of the race but I regret not buying the race scanner. The sound of those cars racing through the streets of Monaco is something I wont soon forget.


My camera doesn't take very good video, but this is mostly so you can hear the sound.


After the race we decided to spend the evening in Nice which turned out to be a good call. Because I haven't moved into an apartment yet I do not have my full wardrobe and am limited to t-shirts and shorts which weren't allowed in some of the places in Monaco. We ate dinner on the beach where John had his first real French Cappuccino. We then swam in the Mediterranean Sea for my first time. It was a little chilly kind of how the Pacific is. There were no waves to surf so we swam around for awhile until I saw the biggest pack of jellyfish I've ever seen. That's when I threw in the towel.


France apparently has hardcore rollerblading gangs similar to our motorcycle gangs. There were literally hundreds of these people one one giant group.


We asked the hotel desk where a good place to get a drink was and he told us "vieille ville" or Old Town. This was a neat little nightlife spot that reminded me of Charleston or Savannah. After a lap we decided on the Irish Pub because they had live music (which is nice to have when you can't talk to people). Little did we know that Irish Pubs were an international gathering point for Americans and Canadians. We met quite a few in there which was a nice change of pace. There was an Italian band that played a lot of Tom Petty so I showed off some of my sweet dance moves.


MONDAY

We woke up Monday and headed "home." I will go over some random things we encountered and learned on this trip. The Autostrade (Italy's Interstate) may have a speed limit, but no signs indicating one, and cost us over 50 euro in toll fares (Highway Robbery=bad joke). I can't be sure but I think the French were the worst drivers of the seven or so countries we drove in. Scooters are absolutely insane. My GPS doesn't work that well in Europe and sends me down some pretty strange routes. I like pretending to speak French more than any other language. You have to pay to use the restroom in many establishments. Deodorant is not mandatory in Europe, especially France. You can drink as a passenger in a car or in the streets but not on the beach. European FM radio is awful. People are actually pretty nice to Americans, even in France, and will help you if they can. It's surprisingly difficult to determine which country you are driving in. All of the borders were open and only a few had a significant sign to let you know you were in a new country. Credit cards are not accepted anywhere and you must carry cash with you at all times. The smallest euro paper denomination is a five so you are carrying a lot of coins. By the way, mama g, I am sorry for making faces in my pictures. I'm sure I'll regret it when I show pictures to my grandkids. But it is too funny.

The French Riviera, Italian Coastline, and Swiss Alps all gave incredible views to drive through and made the long hours (over 2500 kilometers and a full day) on the road go by rather gently. Oh yeah, and the weather was PERFECT the entire trip...




Push the zoom out "-" on the upper left of this map to see the full route or click "View Larger Map" below.

View Larger Map

P.S. - It was mama g's birthday this weekend. She turned 29...again!