Un Weekend à Nice et Monaco

I have a prioritized list of cities in southern Europe that I would like to visit, and while Nice and Monte Carlo were lower on the list, I figured I would visit them now before they get over-crowded during tourist season, and then focus the warmer days for higher priority cities. Paris in January and February is chilly (~5 C°) with plenty of rain, while the southeast corner of France was a bit warmer (~14 C°). The downside is that the weather ended up being just as rainy in Monaco during my trip...

Day 1

My plan for the first day was to focus on Monaco, but I was able to visit the beach and the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on the way to the bus station. The one surprising part about the beach was that despite the high salinity of the Mediterranean (or perhaps because of it?), there was a lack of any of the ocean smells that I normally sense from the Pacific or Atlantic.

The beaches in Nice are pebbly, but the water has a beautiful blue hue and is relatively warm (for February); although there were only a handful of swimmers.

Between the time I moved to Paris and this trip, I had visited seven different European countries, and yet I didn't have any passport stamps besides two entry stamps and one exit stamp from the Schengen area. This is because six of the countries that I have visited are part of the Schengen treaty, which means there are no border controls between them; and the seventh country (Vatican City) has no border controls with Italy. However, even though Monaco has no border controls with France, you can still go to the tourist office at the train station and get your passport stamped. This made for a fun detour and a great way to christen my new passport.

The passport stamp of Monaco (but no date in the box). Whoever designed the new Canadian passports didn't realize how the unnecessary pictures on the visa pages can obscure the passport stamps, some of which (depending on the country) can contain important information for entering and leaving a country.

The highlight of my day in Monaco was visiting the Jardin Exotique, not only because of the wide variety of unique tropical plants but also because the garden was at a higher elevation that offered a great view of the rest of the country (yes, you can see almost the entire country if you walk up high enough). The garden was like a smaller version of Barcelona's Parc Guell, although I was one of only three visitors there at the time as it had already started raining by the early afternoon.

A view from the Jardin Exotique facing south. The football stadium can be seen on the right, with the biggest yacht I have ever seen docked nearby (top right).

A view from the Jardin Exotique facing east, with a partial view of Port Hercules.

As it was starting to rain even harder by mid-afternoon and my jacket was starting to soak through to my shirt, I cancelled my plans of walking across the entire country of Monaco. (I had already done it for Vatican City, but Monaco is a little larger.) Instead, I walked over to the nearby Palais des Princes. I should point out that Monaco is a stair-climber's dream: after climbing up and down from the Jardin Exotique and then up again to the palace, my legs were burning just from moving about 1 km. (To give you a better idea, the stairs that run north-south in Monaco have their own street names.)

A mysterious hooded traveler... oh, and François Grimaldi. I did not have any daggers hidden in my cloak.

The Palais des Princes: the official residence of the Prince of Monaco. The Grimaldi statue can be seen on the right side.

By 3pm, I was soaked and needed to get indoors. The Oceanographic Museum was a short walk from the palace and they didn't seem to mind that I was dripping water all over the place (after all, it's a museum about oceans!). I would have liked to have posted a picture of me petting the small sharks in their interactive shark tank, but the lighting was so dark that very little would be recognizable from the photos. The museum was moderately sized, with one floor hosting an aquarium of tropical (and some northern) fish, and two floors exhibiting various shipping and seafaring artifacts.

Various tropical fish from Monaco's Oceanographic Museum.

 

Once the rain let up, I took a quick stroll to the Casino Square. However, I did not (and could not) enter the Monte Carlo Casino. There is a strict dress code (business attire) and a budget traveler wearing a soaked winter sports coat and running shoes would have no chance of entering. It seemed common for tourists to just go there to take a photo of the casino and not go inside.  

Casino Square, facing the Monte Carlo Casino.

The last part of my plan for Monaco was to watch a Ligue 1 match between AS Monaco and Montpellier Hérault. However, it started raining heavily again and the match was cancelled.

At Stade Louis II, but the AS Monaco match was cancelled.

I still want to see an AS Monaco match (I already bought the scarf damnit!) and as luck would have it, they are playing in Paris for a French Cup match against PSG in early March. So I'll be watching that game instead (but cheering against the Monegasque slackers who wouldn't play in the rain!).

Day 2

The second day was slated for Nice. While the city doesn't have any famous landmarks, it offers a beautiful waterfront and a wide assortment of activities. Unlike Paris, most of the stores were also open on Sunday. I started the day by walking back to the beach so that I could loop south along the Promenade des Anglais and into Parc du Chateau. As Carnival was being celebrated in Nice that weekend, I came upon Nice's Carnival Run: runners dress up in silly costumes and run 5K/10K while onlookers throw confetti or silly string on the runners.

The Promenade des Anglais during the Nice Carnival Run. Yes, that is SpongeBob Squarepants outrunning the Flash.

In the Parc du Chateau, you can climb to the top of the Tour Bellanda and get a view of the entire promenade and waterfront.

On the other side of Parc du Chateau, you can get a view of eastern Nice and its port.

After climbing up and down from Parc du Chateau, I headed north through Vieille-Ville and onto the sites in the Cimiez district of the northern part of the city.

Place Massena in the Vieille-Ville of Nice. The two large statues were inflatable and only there for the Carnival festivities.

I passed by the Tête Carée on the way through the Carabacel district.

Since I approached the Franciscan Monastery from the east, I ended up taking a steep climb, again using stairs that had their own street names. After 30 minutes of climbing, I expected a wise monk waiting at the top to offer me some words of wisdom, but the monastery itself was closed to the public while the adjacent church and public garden were both unstaffed. 

The inside of the church of the Franciscan Monastery.

One of the public gardens next to the monastery, overlooking the northeastern part of Nice.

I headed back to downtown Nice using a flatter route. Two days of climbing had worn out my legs (particularly as the OECD football season resumed a few days earlier and my legs were still recovering). I had enough time to check out the casinos on the waterfront. They turned out to be much smaller than any of the casinos in North America, and also lacked the high rollers' baccarat tables that I skipped in Monte Carlo.

The Casino du Palais de la Méditerranée.

So that was Nice and Monaco in a weekend. This wasn't the highest priority destination for me, so I didn't mind visiting in less-than-ideal conditions, although I got a sense that the city would be a great destination for a laid back weekend during the summer. I am hoping to visit one or two of my priority cities in southern Europe during March/April, but hopefully with more accommodating weather.