We got on the train and it was standing room only, we had our luggage and were crammed in by the doors so had to shift and shuffle at every stop to let people on and off. Thankfully it was only a 27 minute train ride. When we got to the train station we were supposed to have been met and brought to the hotel only there was no one there. So we walked to the Fairmont, where we're staying, and got checked in. Our room wouldn't be ready for about an hour and a half, so we went to get some lunch and the concierge recommended we go to the mall just up the street. We went to the mall and sat in a little sandwich shop - its like a food court restaurant only they're spread out throughout the mall with some nice little tables inside a sitting area and other small bistro tables out in the mall corridor. Only in Monte Carlo can you order 5 sandwiches, 2 bags of chips, 3 diet cokes, an apple juice and a cappuccino for 70E ($105 Cad)!! Well, that's not true - you could probably do that in Nice too - its so crazy expensive here. At least the sandwiches were all delicious! And the girls got to drink out of a can for the first time - it was so funny. They don't drink pop (or beer) so they had never had a drink out of a can - Paige didn't know how to open it and then they were cute drinking and then slurping the extra off the edge! Sheltered children apparently.
After we were done lunch we still had a little bit more time to wait for our room so we walked through a park and there were pigeons there and someone had thrown bread down for them, so the girls picked up some bread and were feeding the birds. One of them said to me "Momma, what types of birds are these?" Oh wow - sheltered again..I said "they're called pigeons..they're very rare" (haha, I'm so mean - but it made Sophie get a big grin, she loves rare things and is always asking me "is this rare?")
As we were leaving the park we saw this sign - again, seriously?!?
I said to the girls "no skateboarding, no walking on the grass, no picking the flowers, no picnics, no bikes and no cameras equals no fun!"
We went back to the hotel and got our room, this is our view off the balcony.
The girls wanted to go up to the pool for a swim. Now, its NOT WARM here, its not cold, but its not warm by any stretch. So they put on their swimsuits and I put on a long sleeve shirt and jacket and socks and runners - - but the pool is heated and they swam for a long time!
After the swim Jay and I needed to get ready for our dinner out with the conference group. Today there are only the top 20 people here for the two days in advance of the big conference, so it was a nice small group. We went to the village of Eze which is only about 15 minutes drive - its a very small medieval village, only 20 residents year round and this time of year about 50 residents. Bono has a home in the village and so does one of the members of the Coca Cola family.
We had dinner at the Chateau Eza at the top of the village high above the coast, its a Michelin star rated restaurant - very fancy shmancy. This is the view from the terrace where we had a welcome glass of champagne.
Dinner was very good, it was a 7 course meal and stretched over at least 2.5 hrs.
After dinner we headed back down through the village and to the hotel. The girls are having a sleep over in Gram and Grampa's room so we'll meet them for breakfast in the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment