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squiz
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Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072
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16th June 2016
Hiking - Walking: Around Monaco :) Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods and showers Max Speed: Distance Covered: 12.38 mile (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise)
Thursday 16th June – Hike **** Around Monaco :) sunny periods and
showers. 12.38 miles out 6hrs.35 mins !
We were up and on the road to Monaco by 10. We had to navigate the windy
road down to Menton again but no major problems this morning! We followed
the road round to the Cap Martin where we had biked to yesterday and were
pleased that we had a rather dull day to do it as today, with the sun out,
the prom was a lot more crowded and it would have made it difficult for us
to bike round the bay. After the Cap we took the first turning to the
right and found ourselves at the Roquebrune Cap Martin railway station. We
parked really easily and after taking the subway under the railway line
found the signs to the Sentier Littoral to Monaco straight away! We did
have a bit of a detour down to a public beach because of a badly positioned
sign but it was nice to look at the clear water with what really looked
like a beach for a change! There were an awful lot of steps down which we
had to climb back up again to get onto the path. We then had a second
detour because the path was shut and we had to go back under the railway
line and came up high above the sea front and heading straight into Monte
Carlo. We were a bit fed up about this deviation initially but when we saw
the view our new route gave you down to the sea, the marina and up to the
many sky scrapers which make up Monaco we thought it was a stroke of luck.
The old buildings are very beautiful and there were a surprising amount of
them up on our level. They are, at times, completely blocked in by the new
sky scraping horrors and a lot of them can’t see out of their windows for
the many tropical plants they let grow too big on their balconies! There
are a huge number of buildings with roof gardens too. We have never seen
so many rubber plants grown into huge trees! We found ourselves at the top
of a strange run of new buildings which house the big designer named shops,
Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior etc., all complete with flunkies and doormen
bouncers! This space age mall then gave way to the Monte Carlo casino which
is an old building with lots of history and the Hotel de Paris alongside.
There were many flunkies here, one guy in a posh uniform was parking cars
which had just been abandoned by their rich owners in the middle of the
road! We navigated our way round the tourists and headed to the front of
the casino where we found a roof garden park with views over the marina.
We stopped here to have our packed lunch and not far away a gang of workmen
from a nearby construction site were having their lunch too. We carried on
on a higher level than the marina thinking we would return along the front.
We were able to look down on a couple of private clubs where people were
lounging around in their posh bath robes and positioning themselves on
their sunbeds! We reached the far side of the marina which had an amazing
amount of access to the big yachts. We were able to get quite close to one
which was just leaving. It was a very ugly grey thing and looked more like
a warship but it was fun watching the staff talking into their walkie
talkies as they prepared to leave and finally went! There was a really
lovely bright blue huge sleek mini ocean liner called Madame Gu – that
was our favourite and it had a Bentley alongside which was dropping off its
rich passengers! A passing tourist reckoned that you could count on these
vessels being a million per metre so there was an awful lot of millions in
Madame Gu!! No helicopters on the yachts here but there were a lot coming
in and landing in front of the buildings beyond the Palace. There is a
big festival of American TV on in Monte Carlo at the moment and another
huge ship was having blacked out people carriers bringing clothes, bags and
people out to board ready for a jolly! We walked back along the upper
pathway of the marina and followed the signs to the Palais. Amazingly once
we had followed the path around the rocky coast (complete with outdoor
swimming area for the public!) we found ourselves inside a building with
escalators to take you up inside the rock to the very top where the
principality buildings and old town are. There is a museum of Oceanography
but we didn’t feel tempted to go in there. We walked through the
tropical gardens to the Cathedral and then the old streets containing lots
of souvenir shops. We had already bought 3 post cards from the shop at the
top of the escalator! Then eventually we came to the Palais of the
Grimaldi family and watched the guard in his very very white uniform go
through his marching performance – it reminded us of a Disneyland
performance really! Found the steps down past the old canons and piles of
old canon balls and at the bottom came across a Spar shop so we repeated
our ice cream trick from the other day and bought a lemon meringue flavour
tub and used some more of our plastic spoon supply! A cheap treat in an
expensive place ;) Unfortunately just as we emerged from the shop it
decided to rain for a while :( We didn’t get very wet as it was only a
light shower – we just sat and ate our ice cream on the side of the
marina. Then we started the long walk back, coming across the start from
the Monaco Grand Prix in the middle of an ordinary street with rectangles
drawn on the road for poll, second and third etc grid positions!! We
walked along the prom and beach path until it disappeared and turned into a
lot of steps up. We didn’t quite know where the diversion from this
morning would appear and when it did it appeared to send you along the side
of the railway line! We soon discovered this wasn’t quite right but
climbed over a gate to get back onto the path because there was no way we
were walking back the way we had come!!! Reached the station and sunk into
our seats in the van more than ready for a drink and a rest!! Decided to
stay here as we are too tired to try and negotiate Monaco and Nice today!
No view but we intend to go back to that public beach just across the
railway line tomorrow morning for a swim in the sea :)
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