Cruise Day Five: The Real Genovia

Friday morning, we were at anchor instead of at a pier. For Cannes, we had to travel to and from shore by tender. The tenders were the ship's own, the same vessels we might travel on if the ship were to be abandoned for some reason. The waters in Cannes seemed calm, though.

We had to sit above the tender on the way out, and a nice person offered to photograph us.



That's the Star Princess behind us.

The bus to Monaco couldn't park near the pier because there was a fair there. This is becoming a theme. Our cruise is among the last to reach each of these Mediterranean ports before the end of the cruising season, and in many cases other arrangements are taking precedence over us. But we have loved the fairs that we've seen, and that theme would continue today.

The drive to Monaco took us along the coast road, where we saw a collection of French big box stores, as well as a McDonald's with a drive-through (first we'd seen in Europe, it was called "McDrive") and unlimited free wireless. It sure is nice to be able to read all the road signs without difficulty.

Once on the motorway, it was a quick trip to Monaco, and we passed the border at too high a speed for the photograph to come out well. Monaco seems to exist on two levels, a lower level where tour buses and workers dwell, and an upper level where Paul Allen and Mick Jagger can drive their Maseratis and Lamborghinis without much traffic or much care. The bus actually entered a parking lot that was a long elevator ride up to the tourist part of what is called "Monaco Ville," the actual seat of government.

The first thing we saw was the Institut Oceanographique, founded by Prince Albert 1er, the present Albert II's great-great grandfather. He was a real explorer, having taken part in major expeditions to, among other places, Spitzbergen. The Institut is a real scientific organization, having sponsored Jacques-Yves Cousteau on many of his voyages. But the architecture has a whimsy to it all of its own.



Note the walruses.



Note the waves.

From there we walked past the Cathedral and the Palais de Justice.




to the Palais Principe, the home of Albert II, unfortunately closed because he was living in it. Albert II is the Prince of Monaco, the son or Rainier III and Princess Grace. He is unmarried, though he has fathered two illegitimate children. He has to father a legitimate male heir or the whole damn thing becomes part of France again.



Our guide, Francoise, kept stopping and telling people historical facts and repeating over and over again that she was going to tell some people how to get to Monte Carlo if they wanted to go there early, and changing the meeting time in Monaco. Meanwhile, the actual time we'd have in Monaco was being eaten up. The name of this tour was "Monaco and Monte Carlo on your own." In other words, not a guided tour. We were anxious to get going, and all we needed was the final time to meet, but that was the last piece of information she would give out.



Finally, we were dismissed, and Marjorie and I headed back to the Institut Oceanographique. It has a marvelous aquarium, and we were able to take video of a cuttlefish eating and then burying itself in the sand so it was completely invisible. We had some great shots of the fish, too.




I think these were auditions for "Finding Nemo II."

The rest of the exhibits included a discussion of the work that Albert 1er had done in Spitzbergen, and then noted that Albert II had decided to continue his great-great-grandfather's work by going to Spitzbergen to publicize global warming. This gave us a great feeling about him, because he certainly didn't have to do that. He has enough stature to be able to publicize the issue properly. Perhaps he should have shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize as well.

We wandered through the gardens for awhile, beautiful, beautifully maintained and with lovely views of Fontvieille, the new part of Monaco which Rainier III had reclaimed from the sea. In Monaco, even the riprap is designer.



We walked back to the area where the Palais Princip is, and we saw them starting the movement of guards preparatory to the changing of the guard.



Also, the Christmas decorations around the guard house.



It was at this point I realized I was in the real Genovia. Not Genova, which is Genoa, but Genovia, the fictional land where Julie Andrews is queen until her granddaughter Anne Hathaway succeeds her. In the second of the Princess Diaries movies, the streets looked fake and clean, and all the decorations looked like they had been designed. Now I realize this wasn't fiction, it was just fictionalized Monaco. Who knew?

Then again, we're sailing on the Star Princess, so what do you expect?

Here's another example:

I swear they trim the trees to match the look of the mountains, and not just exactly, but in an artistic way.



We wandered into the town and finally found the shopping street, and finally found a wonderful boulangerie/patisserie. Hey, I speak French, I knew what to do. We bought two chocolatines and two loaves, one with poppy seeds that turned out to be all right, and one called a salmontine, which had two points on either end like fish's mouth and was one of the best loaves of bread I've ever eaten. The crust was perfect, the crumb was perfect and even without butter it was pretty special.

Then we watched the changing of the guard itself. I have most of it on video, but a few nice photographs.



We walked through the town some more and came across a street that was being fixed.



While I'm photographing, this guy is trying to tell me something in a sort of half French, half Monagesque way. We finally figured out he was telling us that he had just unearthed the piece of metal he was holding, it was some sort of military artifact, and we were the first people to see it. So he made me photograph him a second time.



The way the background worked out, it looks like he's wearing a cape, doesn't it?

From Monaco, we took the tour bus down to Monte Carlo. Again, you park underneath (in this case, just in a bus stop on the street) and take an elevator up to the part where the Maseratis are.



This is where the famous Casino and the Hotel de Paris are. The Casino's history is interesting. In the late 1800's, the Prince of Monaco, Charles III (the Carlo of Monte Carlo) had a great deal going. He owned the town of Menton, which is between just east of Monaco near Italy. Menton was a major port for the importation of oranges into Europe, and the duty on the oranges made Charles III rich. But Menton voted to rejoin France (not sure of the details of why they were entitled to a plebiscite) and Charles III was facing destitution for himself and his people. What to do? Thus, the idea for the Casino was born. It was the first legal casino in Europe, and immediately began to attract all the jetsetters of the day. The Hotel de Paris followed the next year, and Charles III was soon able to abolish all personal taxes in his principality.

Here is the Hotel de Paris.



They are putting up its Christmas lights.

Here is the Casino.



We were not all that interested in either, except architecturally, and the shops, which included all the usual suspects, we had seen in London, Paris, Rome and Florence already (though I have to admit Cartier had some nice watches). So we walked down the hill to the town below, where we found another Christmas fair, this one featuring Disney songs in French, tacky flocked Christmas trees and people gobbling up sea urchins.



They don't usually sell champagne by the glass at your typical Kansas Christmas Fair, do they? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Across the street was the real reason we had wandered so far down: a supermarket. And here we bought many gifts, including a designer bottle of Evian for Christmas that damn well better have not appeared in American Safeways. Also the Roquefort cheese that I am eating right now (we're docked in Cartagena as I type this) with some inferior Spanish bread, but we finished the salmontine with it when we got back to the ship.

A few days before, one of our shipmates had told us the story of walking past a topless beach in Monaco (obviously on a warmer day than this) and then walking up the sidewalk, where he was stopped by a Monaguesque policeman, who told him to put on a shirt. He argued with the policeman that the people on the beach were topless. The policeman told him that he could go to the beach, he could put on a shirt, and if he did neither, he was going to arrest him.

He put on a shirt. Here's the policeman's authority.



Notice that the message is for tourists. I suspect Mick Jagger could go topless in Monaco and the policeman would say, "Bonjour, Monsieur Jagger," if he spoke to him at all.

An uneventful bus ride back to the ship, but you could see the wind picking up when we got to Cannes.



The tender ride back was not smooth at all, and by the middle of the night, we were fighting 85 knot gales. You could hear banging every once in awhile, and everyone was thinking "Poseidon Adventure." But we awoke in calm, beautiful weather in Barcelona.