France is France is France,
But the Riviera is
Lovely in new ways.
Waking up in Règine's apartment was amazing. We slept in until about 8, which is pretty late for us, and were treated to a delicious French breakfast including bread, honey from the man down the street, homemade orange preserves from a friend, Nutella, butter, and tea. We could get used to this Warm Showers thing.
We packed our things and headed off around 11. It was a quick ride to the centre of town, where we saw a few of the things that Règine had pointed out to us: first on our list was the Russian church. It was apparently a monument to Tsar Nicholas II, and it had changed ownership among Russian royalty many times in order to keep it from being destroyed by Nice's more conservative denizens. I had a talk with Règine about them last night, actually; she said that she sometimes can't stand to live in Nice because of all the crazy politics.
After the Russian church, we headed to see the former citadel site, which is now known as the Château Hill. It was a beastly climb for bicycles, but the view over the city was well worth it. There was also a mosaic of a man who had a beard slightly more massive than Evan's. Impressive, I know. :P
We wandered a bit through the old town, which was brightly coloured and tight. Pastry and gelato shops lined every square, and it was packed with tourists. The end of the high season, I suppose. Every town we've seen along this stretch has been so beautiful, though; the beaches are perfectly-groomed and endless, and the waterfront buildings are pristine. It's almost... eerie.
But we headed out! After finishing the leftover eggplant parmaggiana, that is. Towards... Monaco. The first thing we saw across the border was a luxury car dealer.
Monaco is a principality, which is to say that it is ruled by a prince! It's the second smallest self-governed area in the world (after Vatican City), it is protected by France's military in times of conflict, it is required to align its diplomatic interests with France, but the most important thing about it is that it does not levy income tax on individuals. This leads to its being rather rich. Crews are, in fact, setting up for a yacht show right now.
We're sitting in a gelato shop on top the hill across the street from the Prince's palace. Watching people go by here isn't so different from watching people go by in other places; none of them seem to know where they are going, they all love buying t-shirts with MONACO printed on them, and there's a lot of English. We were hoping to hit the Monte Carlo casino later, but we don't have a safe place to keep our bicycles, and this is not a good place to let them stay on their own. We'll probably head out as soon as we can find our way back to a reasonable road, but we wanted to have a post from this tiny, tiny principality. :)