Monaco

I walked into a lecture and realised after 5 minutes that it was on every other week, beginning next week rather than this one. Rather than getting up with great embarrassment and leaving, I used the two hours to write another – if rather belated – blog post.

Before Christmas, my dance partner Denis and I signed up to participate in the dancesport competition in Monaco in early January. Although I’ve visited the south of France many times in my life, I had never been to Monaco, so I was very excited to visit the famous principality.

It took us just over two hours to drive to Monaco from Aix. The traffic flow system is more complex than in your average city, with tunnels here, there and everywhere, resulting in a small amount of driving in the wrong direction before eventually finding our car park. As Monaco is famed for being a tax haven, thanks to the income which the Monte Carlo Casino brings in, nearly a third of its population are millionaires. This was evident in the car park as the first four floors were reserved for particular residents. I have never before seen so many Porsche cars in one day. While waiting for the doors to the competition to open, we had a coffee sitting on the terrace two floors below in the bright sunshine.

The wonderful thing about the competition being in Monaco is that the organisers were very generous. We were presented with a bag that had two bottles of water, two apples and two cereal bars for each couple, as well as free safety pins! Normally we’d have to bring our own – I’d completely forgotten – or steal someone else’s. Inside the competition venue were tables laid out and chairs for sitting on. This is rather more civilised than the usual layout I’m used to! We had lots of fun dancing our events for which the organisers had merged the adult and youth categories and made a straight final.

After the competition, wanting to make the most of having come all the way to Monaco, we walked around the city for a couple of hours: up to the Prince’s Palace, down past the Port Hercule, and around up to the famous Casino. We were allowed to go into the entry hall for free, but not into the actual casino room as we weren’t dressed appropriately.

As we were feeling quite tired from the early start, we walked back to the car park and left Monaco for Aix at about 9.30pm. It was a fantastic day out, and it was great to be able to see a bit of the city while we were there. Monaco is definitely a great place to take a day trip, but not to stay much longer than that there as its tourism is mostly to do with admiring the beauty of the city rather than from there being many things to do – unless you have money enough to spend in the Casino, shopping, or racing.

A plus,

Zoe x