Life's a beach....

We decided our last day of vacation should be a bit more relaxed, and decided to head to the beach. But it's the French Riviera-which of the many beaches to choose?  We decided to hunt for one with sand.  Here in Nice the beaches are pebbly. And we saw lots of jellyfish out in Cap Ferrat.  We decided to try Antibes, which is west of Nice and east of Cannes. 

Antibes  - founded in the fifth century BC by Greek traders.  It has a medieval feel with a warren of streets protected by ramparts and an offshore fort. 

We headed to the covered market to buy lunch. The zucchini blossoms looked good, but not for a picnic. 

We passed on the olives too. 

But this guy won our business with his amazing ratatouille 

And a baguette of course from here. Did we also enjoy almond croissant and quiche Lorraine?  But of course. 

The streets had some nice boutiques and looked nice too with flowers and well dressed patrons. 

Though Rich declined to enter the porcelain dish store, as he was our pack llama, and a bit challenged with his turn radius. 

Off to the beach. Here's our picnic-cheese, bread, ratatouille, raspberries.  Perfect. 

Rich then braved the cool water temps and possible jellyfish to swim in the Mediteranian.  Antibes is supposedly where waterskiing was invented-Rich said the water had high bouancy. So perhaps that helped with the original inspiration. 

This was our little beach.

There were bigger ones nearby , but hotels and other for profit entities monopolize a lot of the sandy beaches as a pay to play deal. This one was free. 

Back to Nice, and a "greatest hits" dinner.  Mussels and frites, and socca at our favorite place.  Pissaladiere (a Caramelized onion, olive and anchovy pizza bread famous to the region), gelato, and one lemon custard pastry to go. We wanted to eat it with a view, which we found at Castle Rock. We took the Ascension (the French for elevator) to the top of castle hill for views of Nice   The sun was working for us on the port side. 

A bit more hazy looking over the coastline 

Rich saw me in this position a lot -resting up on a bench. There wasn't a single day of the trip we had less than 5 miles of walking, and often it was more than double that.  I managed okay though-the miracle of cortisone shots. 

A nice waterfall on the way down. 

Tomorrow it's a plane and back to the US. 

We won't miss the labor strikes, the smoking, the pickpocket vigilance, and trying to comprehend what people are trying to tell us when they are being helpful due to our limited French.  We will miss the great food, wine, the helpful people, the scenery, history, the excitement,  the art. And the boats.  Au revoir 

Start your engines

The French workers cooperated with us today-no strikes. (PS-we just got an announcement from the US state department that air traffic controllers are planning a strike too-though is looks like we'll be able to get out of the country before that starts.  Not that another few days on the Riviera would be a burden. Rich said that everyone needs to fit in their strikes now because they go on vacation all summer as a matter of course. )

We took the train to the principality of Monaco, which of course contains Monte Carlo.

It is the Monaco Grand Prix racing weekend-but tickets were pretty pricy for the time trials, and sold out for actual race days.  So we were planning to just do normal tourist things, like touring the Grimaldi Royal  palace and seeing the port and casino. Turns out, though, the lofty perch of Prince Albert and his family is also an absolutely great place to view the race course.

 

We were there for the Porsche Super Cup qualifying trials, as well as the GP2 first race. We didn't see the formula one cars today-but I can tell you what we did see was plenty loud and fast enough for us. The Porsches were first. 

If you're  not familiar, the Monaco race course winds along the port and streets of Monaco. Many of the rich and famous pull up their luxury yachts for a view of the races.

So we got to admire fast cars and decadent boats at the same time. 

We did tour the palace

(no indoor photography allowed as it is still a functioning household). The furniture was some of the best we've seen anywhere-perhaps because the family still welcomes visiting dignitaries and signs important documents here. They seem really fond of Princess Grace - mentioned her in the commentary constantly.

We stuck around for the changing of the guard-a little like watching a karate student go through their moves-or like a parade with no one  throwing candy

Then it was back to the wall to watch the GP2s (and some yachts and boats). 

Including one wipeout. This is the projection screen of the driver evac

This is the car being hooked to a crane,yellow flags up to slow other cars. 

Being lifted

And up on the air and off the course. 

And now for some boats 

We didn't just look at cars whizzing around Monaco. We were also able to take a look at Prince Albert's large and varied car collection as an add-on to the palace tour.

Even a boat

And this collection of car vases from the 1910s-1940s.

We also saw some cars in the "wild" of Monte Carlo.  

And some helicopters 

We happened to time our visit with a very cool thing-on Friday afternoon of the race weekend they open up the "course" to the public to walk for free.  They set up concessions and let you right onto the road that hours before hosted some of the worlds fastest cars. 

We got to see lots of behind the scenes action.  Here are some workers repairing guardrails damaged during the racing

Camera cranes and car retrieval cranes up close. 

Pit crews and other racing personnel heading to late lunch

Many workers replacing torn advertising banners on the course, shredded by the passing cars

Skid marks right on the street 

Plus we had a close up view of yacht row, with every big boat graced by a fancy flower arrangement

And bikini girls

And messy "trunks" fiull of jet skis 

Rich finally got a nice shot of a Riva without a cover-though this one was covered in people.

We had just seen a staircase like this at the royal palace-it reminds me of the musical Evita-- little stage flanked on both sides by stairs.

Instead of a Christ figure or a Greek statue, the Monaco harbor is graced by an Olyimpian diver. They've got a pool right here on the track as well. 

We headed up the course towards the casino and found a famous curve for the race. 

At last the famous casino

We walked in looked around and left without placing a single bet.  There goes our yacht and helicopter dreams. See if you can find us in this mirror positioned across from the casino.

Back to Nice and dinner and a nice walk ocean side on the English Promenade. Only one more day left til we're headed home.