Monaco again

I didn't really want to go, but we decided that a visit to Monaco was needed.

I remember visiting Monaco and disliking it.  It felt grimy and all of the famous sights weren't worth the journey.  I never thought I would return, but here I was driving in the direction of this overrated tourist trap.

We had to go though.  Todd had never been, and Maya and I both agreed that no trip to this region would be truly complete without a visit to Monaco.

But before we actually went into Monaco itself, Maya had a nice surprise for us.  She directed me up some roads that actually took us into the hills overlooking Monaco.  We parked the car and went for a short walk until we were standing in front of a view that I personally thought was worth more than all of the tacky garbage in the city itself.

On the course of the walk up to the top, there were definitely some VERY high spots that I found myself as captured nicely by Todd.

It was lovely to be able to sit and just stare out into the ocean and the city.  Maya had brought us both up to this vantage spot, but she was terrified enough of heights that she stayed back away from the edge.

Knowing her terror, Todd and I began to do as much as we could to scare the hell out of her.  We tried to coax her to come closer, tried to push her towards the edge and when that didn't work we started jumping around in a way to freak her out on our behalf.  It was all fine though, there was no danger as the edge wasn't actually steep and had a very gradual incline.  It did make for some dramatic looking photos.

Up at the top of the hill, we bumped into a young couple who had made the hike up to the top of the hill all the way from Monaco.  They were taking pictures but they looked exhausted.  They asked if we had space in our car to drive them back down, which we were happy to do.  The look of gratitude and relief on their faces was hilarious.  The drive down the hills was fun as always, and when we entered into Monaco itself, I experienced a slight thrill at driving around on the roads made famous by the Grand Prix.  The location of the parking garage we went to also meant that I got to drive around the "hairpin turn".

So we found ourselves in Monaco.

Full of the wealthy elite of the world who have more money than taste.

The city had improved a little bit since I was last here.  There were some new buildings and some of these developments didn't look too bad.  On the whole, it was still the same old Monaco though.  The place felt tacky and the people looked trashy.  The old buildings were all still in need of an update and they still had that 70s look about them which I hated so much.

There still wasn't all that much to do either.  You'd walk around the harbour and gawk at some ridiculous megayachts, go and look at the terrible little casino, get bored at seeing supercars everywhere.  Monaco has always survived on its glamourous reputation, but when you are actually inside that veneer is gone and you're left with a fairly boring little city.

There were a whole bunch of discarded office chairs behind the casino.  So we decided to chill out for a bit before we left.  This was probably the highlight of my time in this overrated city.   Monaco still has this strange reputation for glitz and glamour, it will probably last but I will never quite understand it.  It's a tax haven on the Mediterranean that offers good proximity to better and more interesting places, that's where it's true value lies.