I don’t follow car racing of any kind, but those who do will probably know the Grand Prix of Monaco is coming up. Two years ago, we spent a day in Monte Carlo during our Mediterranean cruise during the time in which they were setting up for the race. Honeybun was almost 4 and Sugarplum was 21 months old.
While it was really cool to see where the race was going to be held and walk by the grandstands and up part of the track, I have to admit I was very disappointed in our visit. I was so excited to visit Monte Carlo, in fact it was one of the main reasons I chose the cruise we did. The glitz, the glamour, I was so excited for all of it and it just wasn’t there.
Part of the trouble was we were in port on a Sunday. The boat arrived and docked outside the port pretty early in the morning and had to take a tender in. Once in Monte Carlo, we headed towards the main area where the casino, shops and restaurants are. We were surprised to find everything closed. We wandered the streets a little bit waiting for everything to open and quickly realized there wasn’t anything for us there anyway (Gucci, Cartier, Prada…you get the picture).
We decided to get a snack and wait for the casino to open (not because we’re big gamblers but just because we were there, we figured we should see it!) We ordered a milk for Sugarplum, hot chocolate (a very special treat!) for Honeybun and hubby and I each got a coffee. We were in shock when we got the bill:
Definitely the most expensive milk Sugarplum has ever had! (that’s Euros, approximately 1.3 dollars per Euro at that time=almost 6 dollars BEFORE tip!)
After our snack we wandered back to the casino only to find out children were not allowed in AT ALL, not even in the lobby. Hubby ran in real quick and had a look around while I waited outside.
We then headed to the train station to check the schedule. We were so disenchanted with Monte Carlo we thought about taking the train to Nice for a few hours (Nice is on hubby’s short list of places to visit as Monte Carlo had been on mine). Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time/train options for us to get there and back without rushing which wasn’t really an option with the kids.
So we decided to head towards the palace. On the way we stumbled upon a cute little farmer’s market and then made our way up, Up, UP the hill to the palace area, bumping the buggy all the way. The walk up wasn’t too bad (though I was getting blisters from the “fancy” shoes I decided to wear) and the view was amazing!
We spent a little time wandering around near the palace, doing a little shopping (prices near the palace were much more reasonable!) We still weren’t all that impressed with what we found in Monte Carlo and after the sticker shock of our snack decided to head back to the boat for lunch.
While we had walked up to the Palace from the city side, we walked down along the harbor side which was quite a bit trickier but also much more exciting and we got to enjoy the view the whole way down (though it was a little tricky finding our way at times and staying on the path!)
After lunch hubby headed back into the city to go to the casino, Honeybun headed to the kids club and I sat in our room with Sugarplum while she napped. And that was Monte Carlo.
