Sunday in Monaco

Posted on 2014/09/11 12:52:46 (September 2014).

[Sunday 7th September 2014]
Started the day with breakfast at our hotel, the Monte Carlo Bay, which is always really good - sitting out on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. It was already really sunny at 9 in the morning - we had to get the staff to move the parasol a couple of times to stay in the shade - a nice problem to have! It was hard to imagine that this was supposedly the end of the summer. Disappointingly though it was difficult to get Erika to eat much of anything. She's really not much of a breakfast person.

After breakfast, and a bit of general faffing about, we headed out for the day. It occurred to me when planning this trip, that although it was our fourth time to come to Monaco, we hadn't really done some of the main tourist attractions - in particular the Oceanographic Museum and the Prince's Palace. On a previous visit we'd got as far as the gift shop of the Oceanographic Museum, and had then been overcome with a very much out-of-place attack of stinginess, and had decided we didn't want to pay to go into the museum proper. Now that we have Erika with us though it's important to try and plan things to do which will be fun for her too, and she really likes aquariums.

So we headed to the Oceanographic Museum first, mindful that if we left it until the afternoon, Erika might be having her afternoon nap. We got a day pass for the buses today, and I have to admit, as incongruous as it sounds. to get around Monaco by bus it's actually the best option - taxis seem very few and far between, and unlike London you can't just hail them at the side of the street. Calling a taxi seems to always mean at least a 15 minute wait, and the buses are typically more frequent than that.

The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill up to "the rock", and I was surprised and delighted to see the market was on - not what I expected on a Sunday. It was great to see this other side of Monaco, it's easy to imagine people living here just eating out at restaurants all the time, but apparently they do actually cook at home from time to time. Or at least have their staff cook at home for them. Just like the market in Nice yesterday there were some very tempting fruit and vegetables, but I wasn't all that optimistic that anything would survive the journey home. I thought I'd chance it and get some fleurs de courgettes, but they had indeed gone off by the time we got to Paris the next day.

From there we headed up the slope to the top of the rock - not sure it's really designed with buggies in mind and this was rather hard work! We headed to the Oceanographic Museum once at the top, and once inside went straight to the basement where the aquarium is. It may not be the largest aquarium we've been to (the one in Genoa was huge) but Erika seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. Upstairs, the more museumy parts, were perhaps less interesting for Erika, but I was quite impressed by what a grand space it was. We finished with the roof terrace, which was really hot, and the glare from the sun made it difficult to keep my eyes open. Erika didn't seem too bothered and was determined to have a bit of a play in the nautically themed playground.

We noticed there was a restaurant there, and decided we should probably have lunch there in terms of timing, as Erika was starting to get hungry, and would probably want a nap soon after, and I wasn't sure where else we'd go in the immediate vicinity (the rock seems to have Monaco's only small cluster of naff looking tourist restaurants). The food was surprisingly good - and suited us really well - we each had a pasta dish, I had tagliatelli with porcini, Erika had spaghetti carbonara (I thought it might be less messy than a tomato sauce) and Chie had something seafoody.

In the museum gift shop on the way out I bought Erika a cuddly turtle, which she immediately became very attached to (this weekend was partly a birthday treat for her, after all). Sure enough, soon after leaving the museum Erika dozed off, holding the turtle. We had a nice walk along the edge of the rock, through some very pleasant gardens, to the Prince's Palace.

It turned out the Palais Princier wasn't suitable for buggies, and we didn't want to wake Erika up. So Chie and I took it in turns to go round, while the other waited outside in a shady spot with Erika. I really enjoyed the interior of the palace, it was just about the right size of me to keep my interest, and the apartments were lavishly and variously decorated.

We headed back to the hotel after that, keen to fit in another swim in the hotel pool before it started to cool off. This was really nice again, just like yesterday, and it was lovely to see Erika enjoying herself splashing about in the water.

In the evening I thought it would be nice to do something lively as it was our last night, so we went for dinner to the Brasserie de Monaco. I'd read that they brewed their own beer, which seemed a bit at odds with my image of a brasserie, but discovered later that the original derivation of the word is actually from brewery. On arrival I have to admit to feeling a bit out of place, there was a sort of party atmosphere, a live DJ and bongo drummer, and most of the customers sitting out on the terrace, overlooking the yachts, were in their 20s I'd guess. I did check as we were greeted at the entrance that it would be OK to come in with a small child and they said absolutely fine. We sat inside as it was a bit quieter, and reassuringly there was another family with a young child there. Erika, however, did not want to miss out on the party, and throughout dinner kept heading back outside to dance. The partial tiger costume wearing bongo player waved at her a few times which I thought was very sweet - Erika was after all the only person dancing. The menu turned out to be mostly bar food, lots of things designed to go well with beer. Fortunately this gave me the opportunity to try Barbajuans, a speciality of Monaco - little deep fried pastries with spinach and cheese. Not sure if they're normally accompanied by beer, but they went very well I thought. Chie had a club sandwich - I didn't realise they existed outside of hotel room service - and when we enquired if they had anything for kids, they recommended a steak and chips for Erika. So we thought we'd give that a go. She didn't really eat much of it, perhaps because she was far more keen on going outside to dance.

After leaving the Brasserie de Monaco we had a bit of a walk around the harbour, and had a look at some of the yachts.

It had been something of a tradition until now that I always pay a visit to the casino when we come to Monaco, and it had been the plan that I might go there on the way back from dinner tonight. In the end though I thought I'd rather just go back to the hotel with the girls. Instead, before getting the bus back, we went to the supermarket, which no doubt a cause of much hilarious confusion in Monaco, is part of the French chain called "Casino".

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