Travel

Monaco, Monte Carlo, Condamine and the Rock

We are visiting Monaco, a very small and very rich country. It's just over half the size of New York's Central Park, and every third person here is a millionaire, but you don't have to be rich to visit, as we'll show you. See more of our Provence movies here: Nice and Monaco https://bit.ly/2N6xjTE Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles http://bit.ly/2NAzqjW Cannes, Antibes https://bit.ly/2xRyUlX Saint-Rémy, Les Baux, Pont du Gard, Uzès and Nimes https://bit.ly/3f9htED The nearest big city is Nice, just thirteen kilometers away along the French Riviera, and it's connected by direct train service that just takes 1/2 an hour to get here. There are three main exits from the train station. If you walk out at Ste Devote it will bring you pretty quickly right to the waterfront and the downtown Condamine neighborhood. It's a short easy walk. It's quite level and attractive as you see, and right away you'll be getting into the town itself. However, I'll suggest, and be showing you here, the upper exit that will put you out in the direction of Monte Carlo, heading for the casino, which everybody wants to see. After exiting the upper level of the train station, walk along Boulevard Princess Charlotte which has a wide sidewalk, busy traffic, upscale apartments, and Hotel Novotel, which would be an excellent place to stay. And there are some shops and offices mixed in along this grand boulevard, and which is leading us in the direction of Monte Carlo and the casino, but along the way we first want to stop off at the Tourist Information Office. So we stopped in, had a nice talk with Margie, who showed us some brochures and a map, told us about what to do, providing very useful information. You can also download the map and several brochures from the Tourist Information Office website, visit Monaco.com, which also has a lot of information about hotels, restaurants and things to do. From here, you walk a block and then cross the street to the Pavilions Monte Carlo. This is a brand-new shopping complex that looks like it's dropped out of a Mars expedition, avant-garde styling with pedestrian lanes weaving through it. Next we walk in the French-style garden featuring little landscaped valleys, waterfalls, streams and ponds, populated with exotic trees and colorful flowerbeds. Along with several other gardens, Monaco has Europe's second-highest percent of urban land in greenery. We have a lot more to see and show you in Monaco. La Condamine is a wonderful district in the center of Monaco, with the casino district to the east and the Old Town up on the rock with the palace to the west. La Condamine sits in somewhat of a valley between the two. It's fairly level, as you can see, there's a slight slope to the street but no big hills to climb or staircases necessary in this part of town. It is pure pleasure to spend some time here, and a perfect place for a meal, as you'll see, lunch or dinner or a snack even breakfast, what have you. There are so many food choices here ranging from the supermarket we will get to, with simple take-out foods, or you might want to sit down and share a pizza with some salad, as my travel companions from Hawaii thoroughly enjoyed, with his outdoor ambience, good service, reasonable prices, delicious food and a view of all the people passing by – perfection. Like most Monaco neighborhoods, this is fairly small area. Rue Princesse Caroline, the main street, is just 250 meters long, and has several attractive side-streets with more restaurants and shops. So you can easily cover this in a couple of hours – enough time to eat and have a look around. It is such a charming section and yet many visitors never even get here in their eagerness to see the casino, and the shops around the casino, and the gardens, which are very beautiful. And then they want to go up on The Rock, where we're going soon, to see the palace and the Old Town. They kind of overlook this middle part of the country. And there's more to see right here beyond Princesse Charlotte Street. At the north end of the pedestrian zone you'll find the main street of downtown Monaco – it's rue Grimaldi, with a whole lot more shops that will keep some people very busy. We've had a good look at the casino area and this downtown, and now we're visiting the other most important part of Monaco, the Old Town up on the hill, called The Rock. The Old Town is just as attractive in its walls and buildings as any of the other rock villages of the Riviera. There are three main pedestrian streets that run in parallel out from the Place du Palais, and they are crisscrossed by some narrow alleys that tie it all together, all around the Cathedral. http://tourvideos.com/