Why Were We Up Again at 5 AM?!?!? And, Who Knew? The French Riviera is Gorgeous

Ah, dear Reader, the choices your intrepid Blogger has to make.  In fact, M said over dinner, "How in the world are you going to blog THIS day?"  Fair question.   "Briefly," but not shortly.

I start with today's money shot.  Okay, one of the day's better money shots:  from the palace at Monaco.

Or from the garden at the Villa de Rothschild down the road in Cap St Jean Ferrat.

I provide the link to picks:  I have captioned them...to a point.  https://picasaweb.google.com/105397618648885302074/RiveraDay1?authkey=Gv1sRgCLep9pLst7S0NQ

But, we must start at the ugly, auspicious beginning.  We were up early enough that we were ready to hop in the taxi we had requested for 530.  Off to Victoria, through a typical London rain, to the Gatwick Express.  My cc didn't work in the first machine, but then in the second to collect pre-paid tickets.  Then we sat on the platform 15 minutes.  Then they announced  the trains were running 8 mins slow due to construction.  We were cutting it close.  We, of course, were in the cheapo, farthest terminal, and had 9 mins (I saw on the guy's screen) as we got into security line.  Then! both M & I got pulled out for our bags.  They went through them, tested everything, threw out my shave butter (too much liquid...though probably technically not) and we bolted for the gate.  It was the last gate.  No one was there (of course) when we got there, but the plane was there.  We had missed it!  A helpful staff person sent us ALL the way back to the departure lounge to talk to the agent there.  She was a big help and put us on the next plane, at 915, not 7 AM, which had a cancellation of two seats and that's all they had!  By the time we sat at 7:30 at Starbucks for our first coffee and a pastry, we had walked 4200 steps, many of them at a fast pace.  I was knackered (I've learned the term over here).

Once to Nice (I'm skipping A LOT of Nice/nice jokes because it's not clear which Bing or Bob has gotten more annoying with them), I went to Hertz and got in the gold club line.  M says it took an hour.  Finally! we got into our delightfully small Renault Clio (no backseat, no trunk, 5 speeds, shift shift shift, my left leg hurts like hell!) and away we went.

The wrong way for awhile.

It took some time for M, riding shotgun to really figure out "Ken," our mobile GPS.  See, I looked to change it from Spanish, which it was set on, and the first English voice it came to was "Australian, male...Ken" -- so we spent the day saying "Ken said..."  As we can all imagine, except the original Ken, "Ken" is wrong fairly frequently and we are both used to saying "Okay, Ken." :)

Goal one was Monaco.  After Ken took us to a dead end at the top of a hill outside Nice, we made it, though M said multiple times "I thought you were going to kill us."  I will just say the one time he said "scenic overview" and at 70km/hr I dove from the left lane, over the curb, to a screeching halt.  If Charlie Sheen can do it in the Fiat commercial...Here's THAT picture:

Then, after some confusion (Ken wanted us to go into a parking garage rather than to the casino -- saved I don't know how much money), we parked -- across the street from, yes, Virginia! a Starbucks.  Photo proof.

After a quick cafe lunch, we went up the hill.  I didn't have my camera and the pedometer was over taxed on my iPod and turned it off, so it is hard to describe the steps up to the Monaco palace.  Okay, this gives you an idea -- there are TWO defibrillator stops on the way up!  I told M that I should have a picture laying in front of one.

My cardiologist and stress test tech will be happy that I made it and was able to catch my breath after only about three hours.

Here's your photo of the palace:

Then back, circling the principality (which is charming and exotic -- sits on the side of a significant hill) and eventually heading east to what was supposed to be stop one -- the Rothschild Villa in CAp St. Jean Ferrat.  You ask, what is grand about it?  Okay, it sits on a hill on a point so you have views of the Meditteranean in 3 directions (have a mentioned it is the most beautiful water I've seen since the Carribbean?).  And it has huge gardens, with a fountain, or two, or three.  Requisite picture.

Of course you had to walk a lot of steps straight uphill to get to there.  I made it to the scenic view before stopping.  And then in the garden, where there's a pic of me trying to breath on a bench (the heartless, pun intended, bastard took a picture of me convalescing.  Is that wrong or what?

The hotel is over an hour away, via roads one car wide, and by one car, I mean one Renault Clio wide, and it turned into a nice hotel -- deserving of the 4 stars it got on Travleocity.  And here's the pic from the front door.

And, now, the FP -- M's dinner which is shrimp (gamba -- which my phone meant legs in Italian) and scallops.

We have not figured out what exactly to do tomorrow.  There's an very old fort here and a Picasso museum.  And a beach.  I have a suit.  Wish me well.

Bon soir. #