Day 19: 15 July 2010

    

This morning we took Rick Steves’ walk through Old Nice.  It brought us past some pretty fountains, and into the heart of the Old Town where we ate dinner last night.  I decided last night that I like Nice.  It won’t be my favorite place on the trip, but it’s still a likeable city with a cute downtown, some good French food and some authenticity to it despite all the tourists and French people on holiday.  We made sure to have pan au chocolate and some type of spinach and zucchini quiche before we left…heavy, but good!

Wish we had more time to sit at the beach, but today was also our day to see Monaco.  Two hours there was plenty of time to get an idea of what goes on in this principality that might as well be part of France.  From our parking spot we took several outdoor escalators uphill to the Palais where Prince Albert lives.  Decided we didn’t need to take the expensive tour so we wandered around the streets of the Old Town and caught a glimpse of Monte Carlo from a lookout.  In the Cathedral, we passed the tombs of Princess Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier behind the altar, and tried to picture their 1956 Royal Wedding here.  Who knew Bumpa and Jaye share anniversaries with royalty?!  The Prince and Princess were married April 19^th, too.  Outside the Cathedral we walked through the pristine botanical garden and headed back to the car.  Of course we had to stop for a McDonald’s sundae before leaving!  On the way out, Joe decided that he had never seen so many Porsches and Ferraris being driven in one place!  We even saw a Lambourghini in use!  As you can imagine, Monaco is a ritzy place.

Today was one of our longest driving days.  We had a 5+ hr. drive from Monaco to Lisa & Benson’s in Montegalda.  The first part of the drive was the same A12 we drove yesterday back to Genoa.  I think I was paranoid about the ear-popping tunnels because I did not enjoy the winding mountainous roads.  Passed by Menton before crossing the border to Italy and tried to imagine where the Walter family villa is.  I just found out a few weeks ago that Martin, my long-time Gillette volunteer at Parker, has a place over here.  It was amazing how drastically different the landscape was on the A21 and A4 going north and west towards Lisa & Benson’s.  We went from mountain tunnels, to flat roads and cornfields.   Along the way we were surprised to come across the “45^th Parallel” crossing over the highway. The 45^th Parallel represents the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. Apparently, this line is also loosely used as the border between the US and Canada and many other uses. Check out more info here.

Somehow we picked the wrong toll lane that wasn’t working properly so Joe had to find his way across three toll lanes to pay so we wouldn’t have the Italian government after us!  Picked up pizza at a nearby pizzeria and finally arrived at the Harts’ around 9pm.  Spent the evening catching up on their enormous patio out back.