Cannes to Monaco

 Life is grand! 

We are being blessed with stellar weather here is the calm and glassy Mediterranean Sea. Yesterday was overcast for the first part of the day which coincided with our hiking (read: climbing) commitment. The rest of the day heated up to 26C and it couldn’t have been better. 

We started the day anchored in Cannes, France. After tendering ashore with our tour group we headed for Nice where we went on a short walking tour and then got an hour to ourselves to wander about. The French Riviera (Cote d’Azur) is beautiful! I watched a school of what I believe were flying fish jump out of the sea to avoid a swimmer at one point. Pretty cool!

Our next stop was a medieval village of Eze at the top of a cliff. It was absolutely beautiful and a cardio workout to boot. Up the cliff we went to admire the village, cliff-side church, and an absolutely spectacular exotic garden. I have to say that we were a bit disappointed with the lack of imagination of the French, who choose to pronounce the name of this place Ezzz.  Surely it would be better to adopt a two syllable pronunciation so that we tourists could visit Nice and Easy.

After Eze, it was off to Monaco. Remind me not to complain about traffic ever again in BC! We did a walking tour of the old town where Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie have their homes. We carried on the the beautiful church where Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly were married and now rest in peace. Their tombs have fresh flowers placed on them every day. They are still beloved in Monaco. Than to the fairytale Palace. Chris really wanted to go photograph the Monte Carlo Casino and the accompanying Lamborghinis, but even though it was only a mile away, it was a lot of climbing and we could not go inside (serious dress code restrictions) and we would have had to forgo eating and given the 7 hours since breakfast we made the sacrifice. For the second smallest country on earth, Monaco is remarkably spread out. It is only a mile square. What surprised me most was the underground highway system complete with highway interchanges, traffic lights and, if you can believe it, a ROUNDABOUT! 

We ended our day back in Cannes with a short walk back to the waterfront and the famous red carpet steps of the Cannes film festival. 

The captain just announced that we are sailing on waters at a depth 2200 meters or 7000+ feet and the water temperature is 21C! I can’t believe how warm the water is. We are sailing at 10 knots and I think that I make a bigger wake when I swim! This is without a doubt, the smoothest sailing I have ever been on. 

Today is pool day, meet the captain, and ‘chic’ night (formal night for us old school types). We are sipping our mimosas now but we’ve gotta go get wet!

Happy sailing!

Nice, France

A lofty view of the French Riviera


Cannes, France

Part of our climb to Eze, France

Eze


Monaco



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