Day 17: Monaco, Villefranche & Final Dinner

It is hot here. We are definitely in the south of France now - hot, sunny, blue skies. Wonderful to enjoy, difficult to pack for...since London and Paris were definitely chilly. However, I slapped on what is now a very familiar t-shirt, and Amy and I headed to Monaco after breakfast. (That's "mo-knock-oh" in French). We took the city bus successfully to the stop in the middle section - there are three segments to Monaco - the old area, which has the palace, cathedral, which is up on a huge hill. There's a lower middle section, and on the other side of it lies Monte Carlo with it's famous Casino. We started out with the little Rick Steves walking tour of the old town in our book after hiking our asses up a significant hill - with all the walking we've been doing, I thought it would be nice to get some exercise in...Amy, well, not so much, but hey, tomorrow we sit on a plane for 12 hours! Anyhow, I was Amy's tour guide, and though I have yet to see a tip, she seems pleased with my performance in this regard. We saw, as stated, the Palace (yep, the price really lives there), Grace Kelly's grave in the cathedral, and various other lovely views and gardens.

Since Monaco is its own "principality" (technically, a separate country, though less than 1 square mile, it more or less functions as part of France), they have their own stamps and post office. We were keen to pick out some fun stamps, Amy picked up postcards and we had a lovely cappucino and pain au chocolat (the best chocolate croissant I think I've ever had, actually - warm, crispy - yum!) - she wrote postcards and I went and walked around a little more (I blog my postcards, essentially, so no complaints that you didn't get a postcard from me :). After this, we walked down the middle part of town again and hopped a bus to the casino area. There we just took it in, since it wasn't yet open, gambled a little just to say I did in a side-casino, and they we grabbed lunch. Next up, we actually found a simple little salon and got pedicures - we both needed a rest, and honestly, after 18 days of walking, the feet needed a bit of attention. Our time in Monaco ended with Amy making her big purchase of the trip - a really gorgeous bag from Celine. I knew she was a bag-freak, but really thought she was joking at first - though as soon as it became obvious that she meant business, I switched gears into "good friend who helps others spend copious amounts of money!" (some of you may know this side of me). Anyhow, she was pleased with her big purchase, the bag is really cool, and with that, we headed back to the hotel.

Amy took a siesta, I headed out to just sit and listen to my iPod for a while...ran into my buddy Bob and sat at a coffee shop with him while he wrote postcards. I just stared at the water and the boats and people watched. It was nice downtime before our final dinner, which was at 7:15. We dressed up a little - quite honestly, those clothes were the cleanest of the lot at this point - but it's always fun to dress up! Dinner was at a seafood place, it was good but most of mine landed on George's plate, or Shane's. They both benefited from my lap-band this trip, let me tell you! And oh my, yet again, the wine flowed. George and I split a bottle...and then after dinner, we all went out and he and I, well, split another. Bottle. Yes, that means I drank a whole bottle of wine. Hey, it was the last night of my vacation! After that, me and two other women on the tour went to a bar with a batch of American Navy guys hanging out - they were thrilled to run into people who spoke English as they've been at sea for 5 months. They were good fun (of course, we three were a bit tipsy, so were we :) and it was a lovely ending to the trip!

I got back and packed up (yes, at 2 a.m.) and Amy, who I'd woken up, suggested I shower and get myself together since I had to get up in less than three hours anyhow. I was drunkish, so I just listened to her directions. And, honestly, it paid off - I got up pretty easily and caught my 5:30 a.m. shared taxi to the Nice airport!

Photos: Monaco's Palace, Cathedral, Harbor, Casino; Amy and "the bag"; a few shots of Villefranche (including the one up top) and, the best Pain au Chocolat ever!