Today was another glorious day, sunny with clear skies and warm, but not hot. We went back to the overpriced breakfast restaurant. With no water, we don’t want to make a lot of dishes to wash (yes, you suspect right. The dishes thing is really just an excuse for Christi to not have to cook). Then we went to the palace to watch the changing of the guard. Today we took a different set of stairs up the rock. This staircase is quite close to Kosmos and let out right at the palace. This set of stairs is a lot steeper and it doesn’t wind through as much picturesque garden as the set we took yesterday, but it is still an especially beautiful setting for a staircase and the views of the bay and city are just as stunning, if not more so.

Yesterday we posted a similar photo of the bay and Monte Carlo, but it was taken from the southwest end of the bay and you couldn’t see Kosmos. This set of stairs is at the northwest end of the bay, so you can see Kosmos in her special overflow berth in the lower right hand side. You can also see the pool we mentioned yesterday, and the racetrack that they are setting up on the tarmac in front of Kosmos.

The ceremony lasts about 10 minutes and isn’t particularly exciting. A group of guards march from the house the guards live in (the building on the left that is both cut off and kind of bleached by the bright sun hitting it in the first photo), through the stanchions and up to the palace entrance (only a few hundred feet away). At the entrance, the guards coming off duty face the fresh guards, they do some salutatory routines with their guns, then the off duty guards march through the stanchions back to the guard house. The second photo is of Francesca standing in front of the palace.

When the ceremony was over, we decided to skip the palace tour and head right to the casino. We caught a bus. They have really good public transit for such a tiny place. The first picture is the casino. The second is the Café de Paris, which is on the left of the casino. The third is the Hotel de Paris, on the right of the casino. All three are part of the legendariness of Monte Carlo.

Eric and Christi knew that the casino had a strict black tie dress code. Tuxedos and ball gowns only; anyone showing up in a paltry three piece custom Italian suit would be turned away. We knew there was no way on earth we’d ever get in. When we arrived, we heard that they had recently “relaxed” the dress code, and for some reason we assumed that “relaxed” meant a suit and cocktail dress were the new minimum standard. We don’t have a suit or cocktail dress aboard, but we were keen to put on our best duds and come back later to see if we could get past the appraising eye of the bouncers. We viewed it as a thrill akin to sneaking into the global warming convention in Bali.

Andrea had his doubts about the dress code. He went up to the bouncers and asked. We were a little sad to find out that the new “relaxed” dress code allows just about anything at all. Shorts and tank tops are perfectly fine. With no thrill of sneaking in, it was now just another casino and no longer shrouded with mystique and a sense of adventure. It wasn’t open yet, anyway. The guard told us to come back in a couple hours.

There is a long line of ungodly expensive cars parked in front of the casino and hotel. As in, more expensive than a house in most cities in the world. Obviously, they put the really flashy ones on display out in front.

We have neglected to mention that the last few days we have seen an unbelievable assortment of cars all around Monaco. Literally all the top end cars of the world are gathered together in this little town. You have the high end sportsters, such as Lamborghini, Ferrari and Porsche. You have the super luxury models, such as Rolls Royce, Bentley and AMG Mercedes. And there is every super fabulous car in between, such as Mazaratis, top end Audis, top end Alfa Romeos, top end Lexus, etc. It is really a fantasyland for car lovers. It seems to take Eric and Andrea forever to walk through parking lots because they stop to look at all the high end cars. Christi keeps warning Eric not to let any drool hit the car, the motion detector alarm might go off and we’ll be arrested for defacing the car.

Anyway, after practically using a crowbar to get the guys away from the cars in front of the casino, we walked around the Monte Carlo area, checking out the cool buildings, scenic landscape, and pretty views of the ocean from various vantage points. The first one is Andrea is a park near the casino. The second one we think is the opera house.

At one point, we saw people carrying grocery store bags. Great. We needed to go to the grocery store. We walked in the direction that the bags were coming from. The bags seemed to be emanating from a shopping mall. We went through the mall, but we couldn’t figure out where these mythical shopping bags were coming from. Just as we were about to give up, Andrea followed someone around until he found an almost hidden set of stairs leading inside the grocery store. The stairs and sign are so discreet that you have to know it is there or you’ll never find it. We have nicknamed the store “the hidden cave”. The store has all kinds of great food we like, including our beloved Mammy Nova yogurt. Most importantly, they have a good selection of microwave dinners, something we have only really found in Australia (and the US, of course) and nowhere else until now.

We got some food for lunch and went to the park near the casino to eat. There were a lot of people enjoying lunch out there. As we were leaving the park, we noticed a guy renting Ferraris. He was charging $125USD to do one lap around the Grand Prix circuit, roughly 3 kilometers. If traffic was blocked off like it is for the race, then it would take 1 ½ minutes to do the whole lap, but with today’s traffic it was more like a 15 20 minute drive. Andrea and Eric stood there a long time debating about whether to do it or not. It was so tempting to take a spin, but in the end they decided it is absolutely immoral to drive a Ferrari in such heavy traffic. Here they are debating.

The casino was open now, so we went in to have a look. The lobby reminded us of the more tactful churches we have been seeing lately. The interior is fabulously beautiful, with really high ceilings and huge chandeliers. The floors, walls and pillars are colored marble. The walls are painted with exquisite frescoes, and the ceiling has a huge stained glass masterpiece instead of a painting.

It was very solemn and quiet, like a church. There was no obnoxious music from the slot machines, no ringing bells when there is a slot winner, no shouts of joy, no drunks stumbling about and carrying on about how they are sure their luck has changed and they just need one more hand to win it all back. We definitely aren’t in Las Vegas. None of us can remember what the Monte Carlo casino in Vegas looks like, so we can’t attest to similarity of décor.

Off the foyer there is a small room with a few slot machines, which is free to enter. But to get inside the actual casino where the real selection of slots and games are, you have to pay an admission fee. The entrance fee is $15 USD each for the low end betting room, $30USD for the high roller room. We didn’t go inside. Now that it was no longer taboo to enter, we weren’t interested in seeing it anymore. We’re not gamblers.

To be continued”¦