[Europe Trip] On visiting Nice and Monte Carlo

Arrived in Nice on late evening 8.45pm, walked to our B&B. The room was nice and homey. The building looked horrible, though, with elevator as small as a cupboard, I'd never seen an elevator as small as this before. It should fit 4 skinny people or 2 skinny people with large bags. I didn't think fat people could get in. We arrived there wearing our backpacks and inside the elevator we could not turn around to face the door.. when we walked in forward to the lift, we had to walk backward to get out, haha..

On the next day we went to the tourist center beside Gare de Nice to get a city map. Walked along Avenue Jean Medecin and then strolled along the beach until we reached Notre Dame du Port. Nice was, well,... really nice! Lovely beach with sailing boats and people lazying around. Big pavements for jogging, cycling or walking the dogs.

Initially we plan to catch the bus no 100 to Menton from there to get to Monte Carlo, but the buses were always full. So we took a bus back to Gare de Nice and boarded the train to Monte Carlo instead. It took only 20 minutes to get to Monte Carlo.

We walked up the hill to Monte Carlo casino and terraces. Beautiful city with pretty gardens all over it. Took lots of photos of the flowers and of course the red & white flag :) It's the only country whose flag is the same as Indonesia's.

This city was full of luxury cars roaming the streets: ferrari, alfa romeo, mercedes, bmw, etc. You name it, they had it. They were preparing for Grand Prix at the end of May, therefore fences had been put up at the sides of the main roads, making it difficult to navigate the way.

Went to Exotic Garden by bus no.2. It's a lovely garden with a lot of cactus, bridges, flowers and a huge grotto called observatory caves. I didn't know what to observe inside there, though, except for the rocks that made up the caves. The rocks were covered with some kind of sediments, looked like layer of fat to me, but it was solid. The tour to the caves lasted 40 minutes. They said it was 18.5 degrees inside, but we didn't feel cold, probably due to the continuous climbing of stairs. It's a unique experience. But the tour guide was speaking in French so we just busied ourselves by taking photos. There was also an antropology museum inside the garden complex. Nothing much there, though, that explained why there was no other visitor there except us.

The garden itself was exceptional, with stunning view overlooking the sea, the port, sailing boats, cruise ships and the hilly city. Absolutely breathtaking. The toilet I went to in that garden was toilet with the best view I've ever been to, haha.. The postcard-worthy view could all be seen from the window.

Monte Carlo is definitely one of my favourite cities.

Next, we visited Monaco Cathedral. It's beautiful with grey pillars made of stone, but not much relief. It was of different style with churches in Italy. Monaco and Vatican flags were displayed prominently above the nave.

Walked further to Oceanographic museum and aquarium. This museum contained remarkable collection of marine fauna. Its basement housed aquariums with thousands of species of fish, eels and other sea creatures. The upper level displayed some whale fossils, preserved sea creatures skeletons in bottles, model of the first submarine and Santa Maria ship, etc.

Three words for Monte Carlo: gorgeous, impressive, well-maintained.