Of Plazas, Perfumes, and Principalities

I left off last time with a teaser for my next post. Hopefully, I left my readers with breathless anticipation! It's only been a few weeks, but I already have a LOT of catching up to do.

My last blog post left off with me settling into life in the Riviera among the French. So, let's begin on Tuesday, September 4, after I arrived here in France.

It was such a lovely day that day! (Not that there are many here that are that bad.) All of us in the same study abroad group met at a bus stop next to the Port Vauban, which is one of the more common places to find yachts, as one can see in the background of this picture.

The sign at the bottom says "EAU NON POTABLE" (NON-DRINKABLE WATER)  for those who might try to drink from an obviously decorative fountain.

We had a bus just for us that started driving toward Nice. Needless to say, I was snapping pictures every few seconds.

Cruise ships: They're everywhere during September.

Eventually, we arrived in Nice and were joined by a French girl in her 20s from the nearby village Villefranche who acted as our tour guide. We drove on the beautiful Promenade des Anglais, one of the longest seaside boulevards in the world. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the street itself, but the view beside it looked like this:

I can't take enough pictures of the sea. :)

As we wound through the narrow streets of the fifth largest city in France, there were all kinds of random things to see since the city has been an attraction for foreigners for a couple hundred years now. For instance, the picture below is of everyone's favorite queen, Queen Victoria of England.

Queen Victoria being offered a specialty of four cities of the Riviera --Nice, Antibes, Cannes, and Grasse

Queen Victoria actually stayed in Nice for a while and rented out half of this building, which is now called the Regina Hotel in her honor (not that great a picture, I know, but the best I could do from a moving bus):

Imagine being able to say that you slept down the hall from Queen Victoria's room!

There is so much to see in this city that one could live here for a year without seeing all of it! The most unusual thing in Nice is a Russian Orthodox cathedral à la Moscow.

Looks like something out of a fairy tale, doesn't it?

"What in the world is a Russian Orthodox cathedral doing in the middle of a French city?," you might be asking yourself. Well, in fact, Nice was a favorite vacation spot for the Tsar and his family during the late 1800s (Nicholas II's father, I think, but I'm not sure). Since the Tsar and his family were living in Nice for a while, a lot of the Russian court would come too and enjoy the sun with them. However, there was no Russian Orthodox church here, so they eventually decided to build one of their own here in the Riviera. This part of the Riviera is still popular with Russians today.

Anyway, back to our bus ride. The bus climbed up a hill next to the city to a spot where there was a fantastic view of the Mediterranean and the city below.

I'd never seen water so blue!

Afterwards, we were taken back down into Nice and dropped off for our walk into the old city of Nice with its famous flower market. However, before we stopped, I saw a statue that reflected the Italian roots of the city: a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was responsible for uniting Italy into one nation.

Europeans love naming streets after all sorts of people and having statues of them everywhere too.

Nice, or Nizza in Italian, and all of the region around until Antibes were actually Italian until 1860, being under the protection of the Counts of Savoy. However, the people of Nice decided by referendum in 1860 to become French rather than be part of Garibaldi's united Italy.

The market in Nice is absolutely amazing! On one side, one finds bread, meat, cheese, and all sorts of trinkets and household items, but on the other side is one of the beauties of the city: the Marché aux Fleurs.

Flower prices are a lot cheaper here, too!

Stands filled with thousands of flowers line the sidewalks near a large square in Nice. I've never seen so many colorful flowers in one spot before!

Our resident director told us that it might be wise to buy a snack in the market since we were going to have a late lunch in Monaco, so this is what I bought:

The little ones still look rather large...

One of the "little" ones only cost 95 cents! I could hardly believe it! It tasted really good though, albeit it took me a while to eat all of it.

On the way out of Nice, we stopped to have a look from afar at the most expensive villa in the world. From what I remember, it was built by one of the kings of Belgium and subsequently bought by the owner of the Ferrari company. Since he has died, his widow is selling it for a few hundred million dollars. Should any of you have that lying around, you can put it to good use here!

No, I haven't filled out a change of address form yet.

Eventually, we made our way back to the beautiful old hilltop village of Èze, which boasts one of the two perfume factories of the Fragonard company, which is based out of Grasse, the perfume capital of France. I didn't know nose-candy existed until I went there! This is some of the expensive perfume (and cologne) that people buy in New York City, but here it's only 20 EUR or so for a bottle. Axe? *contemptuous sniff* Please.

Needless to say, some of the girls in our group were excited to  tour this place.

The town is from the 1200s, built on top of a hill overlooking the sea. The town seemed to be filled with a feeling of nostalgia for medieval times and a tinge of sadness for how time had changed. The town used to have a fortress, but that was torn down by Louis XIV when he invaded the territories of Savoy. (Keep in mind that this town was Italian until just 150 years ago.)

Château of the lord of the city

The stone streets and arches of the village were very picturesque.

Inside the village's cathedral

After a whirlwind visit of the village, we all piled into the bus again for the trip to the climax of the trip: a trip to the Principality of Monaco. The tiny country is actually made up of two cities: Monaco City, the capital, and Monte Carlo, the location of the world-famous annual Grand Prix. The two cities are squeezed into a country less than a square mile in size with 35,000 people. To make room for this many people, the country has built up with tall buildings on the hillside and built down with extensive construction underground. In fact, there's even a promenade underground where people go to walk without having to worry about all of the Rolls-Royces, Ferraris, etc., around. The principality still contains many vestiges of its beloved American princess, Grace Kelly, who was killed in 1982 in a car crash at this spot:

Grace Kelly's fatal car wreck occurred at the curve just ahead, which was also the scene for the picnic that she had with Cary Grant in the movie "To Catch a Thief," the movie she was filming in Monaco when she met her future husband, the prince.

The picture displayed of Grace Kelly was taken near this sign. There are other signs around Monaco that depict different scenes from her life as a princess.

After a little wait at the border, we drove through into Monaco and parked in an underground garage. The prince's palace was not that far of a walk (of course, a "far" walk isn't really that possible in Monaco), and I was really eager to see my first honest-to-goodness palace!

The Royal Palace of the Prince of Monaco

On top of the door is the coat of arms of the Grimaldi family, which has ruled Monaco since the 13th century. The depiction of two monks with raised swords deserves an explanation. In 1297, the founder of the Grimaldi rule of Monaco, François Grimaldi (or Francesco Grimaldi, depending on what language you're speaking), could not openly take the virtually impregnable fortress of Monaco with his followers. So, he, his cousin Rainier I and his soldiers disguised themselves as friars and were greeted as such at the gate of the castle. However, as our tour guide told us in her delightful French accent, "instead of pulling out prayer books, they pulled out swords." Thus the two "monks" are François and Rainier I. As Paul Harvey would say, "now you know...the rest of the story."

The tour guide didn't mention what the Catholic Church thought about people impersonating monks to take over a castle. I guess it depended on which side was in good with the Pope...

And here's a statue near the palace of François Grimaldi himself, the cousin of the present prince's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Yeah, this royal house has been around awhile.

Wow, I wish I could sculpt that well.

At this point, our resident director sent us out on our own for an hour and it began to rain lightly over the square. So, I went on a short quest to seek out souvenirs and, more importantly at the moment, lunch. In the area of lunch, I was able to find a little something in a café:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a croque-monsieur. As I have described it before, think of the best ham-and-cheese sandwich you've ever had and multiply that by ten. There is also such a thing as a croque-madame, which is basically the same thing with an egg added. You may now proceed to salivate.

As far as souvenirs go, well, I guess you'll find out after I get back to the States. :) I will say that I found some post cards for a nice collage I'm planning to make after I get back.

By the way, here's what the streets near the palace look like:

Elbow room doesn't really exist here unless you live in the palace--or a boat. Monaco is not for people with claustrophobia.

After returning to our resident director and our tour guide like ducklings to the mother duck (the analogy kept presenting itself to me), we walked down a street to one of the other most famous buildings in Monaco: Saint Nicholas Cathedral, otherwise simply known as Monaco Cathedral. This cathedral is where Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier II and where she, her husband, and many of the other princes and wives of princes are buried.

The outside of the cathedral

The ornate altar

The grave of Princess Grace behind the altar

All of the names on the graves behind the altar are in Latin. So, her name is engraved as Gratia Patricia.

I didn't really want to leave that cathedral, BUT we only had limited time to see the rest. We drove down to Monte Carlo and saw some of the roads where the Grand Prix takes place every year. It takes the country weeks to prepare for a race that lasts for only an hour and a half.

The slowest part of the race. Hard to see why, isn't it?

By this time, we were all feeling rather worn out, but there was one more place we had to go: the Casino Monte-Carlo.

Monaco also doubles as the Las Vegas of Europe.

Cameras are not allowed inside, probably because celebrities don't want compromising pictures taken of them and sold to paparazzi. Suffice it to say that the inside is EXTREMELY ornate with sparkling chandeliers, expensive carpet, and beautiful ceilings. However, in case you're wondering, I did not see anyone famous, and I did not gamble.

A few of us thought we'd go look inside a neighboring casino called the Hôtel de Paris. We were able to get inside but were summarily dismissed by the guy who was supposed to be at the door but wasn't.

A view of the casino from the garden across the street from it

Here I am at the fountain in front of the casino:

Wouldn't you know it, the fountains all started up right after I came down from  taking my pictures of the casino. :/ Oh well!

And here's one of my favorite pictures from the day:

At first glance it almost looks like the bust is in the fountain. At least, that's what I thought when I was reviewing the picture.

By this time, we were all worn out from walking all day long. After a bus ride of an hour or so we finally found ourselves back again in our "hometown" of Antibes. The nice thing is that I found out that I can get a round-trip ticket to Monaco for five euros, so I am definitely going back on my own before I leave!

In the next few days, I continued my explorations in Antibes and discovered some of the most beautiful nature scenery I've seen so far! But that will have to come later. 'Til next time, then!