Day 17: Monaco

We took a train to Monaco today, a rich country with a population of about 7000 people. We've never seen so many Ferraris, Lamorginis, Aston Matins, Bentleys, or Rolls Royces, or other cars that cost as much as a house.

In addition to expensive cars, it had a great public beach, with pebbles. Although we were initially skeptical after the rock beach at Nice, the pebble beach was awesome. It didn't hurt your feet (imagine the inside of a bean bag chair) and, unlike sand, it didn't stick to or get on everything. It was our favorite beach so far, we figure it has to do with the rich people (even if they don't use the public part).

Our time in Monaco didn't include much other than the beach and beach restaurants. However, the walk to the beach from the train station and back was scenic, and we did catch allusions to the big Grand Prix race they have (although it was hard to imagine race cars on those narrow, curvy, and hilly streets).

We took the train back to Nice, grabbed dinner and stopped at the grocery store to stock up on food for tomorrow's train rides. We also ran into a UW Madison student and her boyfriend, which was random. They helped us find our way to the grocery store, which was nice.

We finally returned to our hotel at about ten, only to find that the laundry facilities were closed for the night. So with that, we packed up what we could and went to bed (after watching some cricket highlights and the Iranian election results, of course).

PS - One last thing about Nice, there's dog poop everywhere. We usually walk with a "scout" in front to warn the rest of any upcoming sidewalk mines.