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From Interlaken we had a big travel day to Nice transiting through Italy- that made it 3 countries in one day! We had a crash course in how to order food in Italy prior to our lunch at an Italian 'Services' stop (think food stop on the highway) which led Bill to comment that he had never been scared to order food before (but we got there in the end).
We finally arrived in Nice and had a pleasant casual dinner prior to sitting by the seafront Esplanade and watching life and people go by. The pebbly beaches in Nice weren't all that enticing.
The first of our two days in Nice saw us catch up on some domestic bits and pieces in the morning with a downpour confining us to the hotel in the afternoon. It cleared for us to frock up and go out to dinner in Monaco - a 20 minute drive east along the Cote D'Azure. Dinner was excellent as was the sightseeing of Monaco (all 2.7 square kilometres of it) including the Grimaldi Palace, tombs of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (Grace Kelly), the Grand Prix track and the casino. The main attraction however was the 'car candy' with Ferraris, Aston Martins and Lamborginis all in the mix and in numbers. We sat till late at the Cafe de Paris adjacent to the casino and watched the toing and froing of these cars and their owners. Bill was in heaven!
Wishing to see more of Monaco, we caught the train from Nice the following day to visit the Exotic Gardens which was a cliff side garden of mainly succulent plants which had a stunning view over both the French and Italian Rivieras, and Prince Albert's Car Collection which we both enjoyed immensely.
But the real surprise was finding how gorgeous Monaco is. It may be small but we saw no graffiti or litter of any kind including cigarette butts, not a single weed on any of the immaculate footpaths or public gardens of which there are many, and there was a fabulous feel to the whole place. Rather quiet in fact, even subdued with people going about their business in a very mature way; in a word 'civilized'. We meandered around all day and enjoyed it immensely.
Then we returned to Nice and immediately had to negotiate dog droppings on footpaths, general litter and cars parked virtually anywhere. What a contrast!
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