Yesterday we started the cruise portion of our trip. It was pretty much a relaxation day as we had a leisurely morning and then made our way to the docks in the early afternoon. Once on board, we realized that Norwegian’s “freestyle cruising” (i.e., no set times for meals) seems to suit us just fine. We pretty much spent the rest of the day either eating (bรขโฌลฝig surprise), reading or exploring the ship.
Today was our first port day, and it pretty much started off as moneyed as can be: we docked amongst mega-yachts on the floating pier in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Monte Carlo was pretty much as we imagined it – everywhere you turned there were either yachts, mega-yachts, Porsches, Lambourginis, Ferraris or Rolls Royces! And then there was little ol’ us, in our flip flops and birks! ๐ Since we do not, and will likely never, have enough $$ to actually DO anything in Monte Carlo, we did the one cool free thing we could think of – walk the Monte Carlo F1 circuit. The circuit snakes along the waterfront, around the casino (which we walked into but didn’t play – $5 minimum on the slots!), and underneath the Grace Kelly Theater and then back to the waterfront.
After our leisurely stroll, we headed back to the ship to join our first shore excursion – a bus trip into Nice, France. While on the bus we drove by the villas of Elton John, Diana Ross, Bono, the late Yves Saint Laurent (which had a LONG escalator down to the water), and Greta Garbo. This villa was where Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier. We also drove along the same stretch of road that claimed the life of Grace Kelly on the actual anniversary of her death. Upon arriving in Nice, we then changed modes of transportation to what Greg called “the most embarrassing mode of transportation ever” – a little white tourist train, complete with build-in audio headsets! We toured Vieux Nice on the train and even saw where Angelica used to eat gelato when she was here! ๐
Tomorrow we will be visiting Florence, Italy, where I’m hoping to find a trippai, a street vendor selling tripe! ๐
Edit from Greg: the full list of impressive cars I remember seeing: a Ferrari 599, two Tesla Roadsters, Porsche 356 (from about 1960), Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead, Lamborghini Giardo (I think), Austin Martin DB9, Ferrari 430, and various AMG Mercedes and Porches. At one point, a Mazda RX-8 went by and I thought “well, that’s a little cheap, isn’t it?”