We caught a train from Genova to Monaco after we visited the Basilica di Santa Maria. We absolutely love how easy it is to take a train from country to country, with no passport control or anything!
On our journey, we met a lovely Arabic woman named Nina who speaks multiple languages including French, Arabic, Italian, and English. One wonderful thing about Europe is that most people are multilingual, and it is inspiring us to be so as well! Nina is a very intelligent, loving woman who is deeply religious and believes that the bottom line for all people of any faith should be that we love one another. We strongly agree with her, of course, in our own faith perspective. This is one of our favorite parts of travel: meeting people from different places who we connect with on a deep level for no other reason but that we are all humans and have so many similarities that transcend upbringings or global locations.
As soon as we arrived in Monaco we realized that Mom’s phone was missing! Great! This is why it really is best to rent a phone rather than taking a nice one on a vacation. I called it and it was turned off, so we suppose that it was swiped at the train station.
Monaco is absolutely gorgeous! It is an independent microstate of France, with the largest wealth per capita of any country in the world. It is also the second smallest country in Europe, with 6 km of total land area. The main population is French, followed by Monegasque and then Italian. Banking and tourism are the two biggest sources of income, and this is a very popular destination for the wealthy and famous!
After settling into our gorgeous room at the Novotel hotel we went for a fabulous dinner at a really pretty little restaurant nearby.
The next morning we arose, had
breakfast at the Novotel Cafe, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and sought out the tourism office to acquire our passport stamps! This was a bonus scavenge, worth 300 points! As with all travelers, we greatly value our stamps as collectable items, and we are very happy to have Monaco on the list! We also went to a casino for some chips, another scavenge, but for some reason the casino was closed when we were there. The casino is a large reason why tourists come to Monaco, beside the temperate weather. They also host the Grand Prix motor race once a year!
Here is a pic montage of Monaco: Details of Nice, France below this!
After checking out of the hotel, we were back on the train on the way to Nice, France. We only had around three hours in Nice, and we were saddened by this because we had to keep our luggage with us and it was pouring rain the entire time we were there!
This did not stop us from enjoying the gorgeous scenery of Nice! We walked through the Promenade des Anglais and the Promenade du Paillon, both very attractive streets lined with intricately designed buildings. The Promenade du Paillon has a charming park in it with a play area for children and gardens throughout. We saw poppies, delphiniums, evergreen trees, and more- a very welcome sight in any city!
Founded by the Greeks and the capitol of the French Riviera, Nice is located on the Baie des Anges shores. It is a central hub of transportation, and very famous for tourism thanks to the beaches, museums, and food.
We stopped for lunch in Le Felix Faure and enjoyed Foie Gras and Mussels, both cooked to perfection! We are fond of Foie Gras, fattening as it is (at 1.9 grams saturated fat per serving), spread over bread. It is made of duck or goose liver and is quite delicious! The mussels were served traditionally, in an iron pot on the table, swimming in herb butter. This particular dish was served with French Fries- very interesting… We absolutely love French cuisine, and it is Mom’s particular favorite.
Unfortunately, that was all that we had time to do in the beautiful city of Nice before our 8½ hour train ride to Barcelona- yes, we hit three countries in one day! Here we come, Barcelona!
Below is our Nice, France photo montage!
