Monte Carlo:

A brisk walk to the Nice train station, some mild confusion, then two tickets later and we were off to Monte Carlo, Monaco for the day! The boyfriend is an avid Formula1 fan so he naturally loves this city in particular and wanted to show me its beauty... I happily obliged, especially since I could technically add another country to my list with just a simple day trip! 

The pure opulence of Monte Carlo was apparently the moment we began walking down the hill from the train station towards the bay. Pristine streets were lined with exotic cars and docked yachts rivaled the size of every apartment I have ever had in my life. The weather had grown to be rather warm by this time in the week, and we soaked it in by walking along the waterfront and eating lunch right next to the white sands...

On our own little walking tour of the tiny country we went through the tunnel that is an integral part of the Formula1 course which runs throughout the city every year, found a darling Japanese garden, and eventually stumbled out of the 2.5 mile long nation and back into France accidentally...

Once we made our way back into Monaco, we hoofed it on over to the Monte Carlo Casino and the world famous Hotel de Paris. We sat at the café opposite the hotel in the square and while the boyfriend did some car spotting, I did some handbag/shoe gazing! It was a win/win situation.

Afterwards, I did some shopping and then we walked back down towards the water to grab some dinner before catching the train back to Nice. We ohh-ed and ahh-ed at some more yachts, like this one with its own personal helicopter on the back of it along our way.

Getting back to Nice as the sun was almost done setting, the streets were rather calm since the shopping crowd had since called it a day and yet the dinner crowd had not yet emerged... Monte Carlo was beautiful, but we were glad to come back to familiar sights that evening and curl up into the same bed, so as to rest up for another day trip in the morning!

(In all actuality there was quite a raucous below our balcony every night at precisely 3:45 am due to the bars letting out their crowds. It woke me each time, but I have a feeling that I could get used to it if, per say, we just had to live in a place such as Nice...) 

Tomorrow, Cannes!