Monaco Day 2

The girls had a sleepover in Gram and Grampa's room, which is a floor above ours - so in the morning we called up to find out if they were up and ready for breakfast.  We got together for breakfast in the restaurant on the 7th floor, the roof of the hotel, and then headed out to grab a tour of the city on another little train trolley.  Monaco is the second smallest country in the world next to the Vatican, so our tour was very short!  In addition to being very small, it doesn't have a very long history since really it was just built up in the 1900s, before that it would have been very small and very isolated.  Its been especially rejuvinated since becoming such a tourist destination.

We took the bus (public transit) to get to the train tour and it gave us the highlights.  The weather is much nicer today - we are in short sleeves and capris or shorts today and enjoying being outside in the fresh air.  The Oceanographic Museum looked really cool and the girls wanted to go in, but Jay and I have a tour and dinner there later today with the conference attendees (now the top 60 are here with their guests and the remaining 180 and their guests arrive tomorrow), so we didn't go into the aquarium.  We went back to the hotel on the bus and while my Dad and Jay went up to have their 'quiet time' my Mom and I took the girls over to the mall to grab a bite to eat (because soup in the hotel restaurant was the cheapest thing for lunch and it was 17 EUR, which is about $27!)

Monaco is NOT a good place to have a family vacation!  First, as I've mentioned, its very small and there isn't a lot to do or see and second, the kids have hardly any options for eating and a lot of places don't even have a children's menu.  If you do order them something inevitably there is something 'odd' about it - like a weird sauce or something.  A lot of the sandwich kiosks are pre-made and then they press them in a panini press - so there is no customizing the sandwich for the kids.  Plus, its expensive.  My Mom and I shared a burger ($25) and it didn't come with a side dish, so we split a salad ($20) and got the kids a club sandwich ($20), which they wouldn't eat. 

After we got back we went up to the pool and the girls had a swim, then we dropped them at Gram and Grampa's room and got ready for our tour of the Prince's Palace and the Oceanographic Museum and dinner.

 The aquarium was really cool, they had it closed for our event.  We had appetizers and cocktails down in the main viewing area and then dinner up in a conference room.  After dinner they allowed us to go in to an area with a shark touch tank and touch the small sharks - then we took the charter bus back to the hotel.

My Mom sent me a text when we got back that said - Don't tell Jay, but we found a McDonald's for the girls for dinner.  Sophie got off the elevator and saw the sign and said "Finally, some place we can EAT!"