Monaco

Our third day in Nice we took the train to Monaco! Home of the Grand Prix track, Monte Carlo Casino & many many mega rich people (to APPLY to buy a house in Monaco you have to pay a non-refundable fee of 1,000,000 Euros and paying this is no guarantee they will accept your application to live there. apparently even Elton John & Madonna were rejected). We spent our day in Monaco walking up the Palace where the Prince of Monaco lives (Albert I think his name is) we just had a look at the outside deciding we didn’t want to pay to get inside. Then we walked across to the Monte Carlo Casino, on the way we walked along a section of the Grand Prix track and walked along the docks checking out the ridiculous three story luxury yachts. When we got to the casino for some reason you couldn’t go in straight away. I’m not sure if the whole place was closed or if they don’t like random tourists to go in except for between certain times. Anyway we had to wait along with a lot of other people for about 20 minutes. While we waited we watched all the other tourists leaning (and sometimes sitting on!) against the fancy cars parked outside the casino entrance. At one point an elderly couple came out and the door men rushed to open the fancy car doors (the doors were Gull wings according to Ewen. they kind of reminded me of a batman car) when the guy started the car it gave off this huge roar and all the boys let out a collective 'Phwoar' of appreciation. It was pretty funny. Anyway finally the casino opened for us and while Ewen waited with our stuff (we had a knife with us because we had had a picnic lunch and we weren’t sure if they would be scanning bags so we had decided to go in one at a time) I went inside. They let you into this incredible foyer, very ornately decorated and it had lots of chandeliers. If you wanted to go into any of the proper gambling rooms you had to pay 10 Euros so I wandered around the foyer and then was just heading back out to Ewen when I noticed a pokies room you could get into for free. I went in figuring I had to gamble something while I was here. I put in my 4 Euros pressed a button and the machine started beeping at me and the numbers kept going up and up and up. I had only won 49 Euros but to us that is a lot of money! Pretty much half our daily budget. I took my winnings and left after that! Although not before embarrassing myself with the cash guy. The pokie machine spat out a receipt you had to take to the cash guy and then he gave you your winnings. First of all he seemed to think it was strange I wanted a payout so quickly and then I asked if I could keep the receipt (it was on special Monte Carlo paper stuff with a logo it looked cool OK don’t judge me), he just said "I don’t think so" and turned away. Oh well, at least I had 49 Euros as a souvenir!
Our final day in Nice we went to the beach for a swim, did laundry & picked up our laptop (yay!) Ewen then spent the night reinstalling all our programs & starting to download movies again. Nice was a lot better than either of us thought it would be, once you moved two blocks or so from our hostel it was really Nice (no joke intended!)

Our first french bread stick

Ewen sitting on a wall

A strange sign

The Palace

Me and the palace

Ewen attacking some cannon balls

Me and a canon

Boats in Monaco

Me in a car next to the Grand Prix track

Reflection of the Monte Carlo Casino in a fountain

Monte Carlo Casino

Ewen coming out of the casino