We woke this morning to showers. Fortunately the showers didn’t last long, but unfortunately the showers turned into big fat rain, with lots of thunder and lightning on the side. This was a shame because today we were driving eastward along the beautiful French Riviera coastline, or so we have been told. We didn’t get to see much of it through the rain, although we did have the lightning regularly illuminating our way. So much for the ‘sun, sun, sun’. Before we knew it we were in Italy … again. Getting reacquainted with some of our old friends … well they must have been friends because they spent a lot of time tooting and giving us the fingers. Very friendly folk.
We drove as far as San Remo on a little mission that we had. We have been buying fridge magnets at each of the counties that we have visited as mementos, but we missed a couple of countries before we thought this would be a good idea, and Italy was one of them. So our mission was to duck into Italy and buy a fridge magnet, it will take no more than five minutes … or so you would think. We spent half a day looking for that little puppy. When we were in Italy the first time, we were tripping over them, now we are looking for one there are none to be found. In fact there are no souvenir shops at all to be found. Surprising since this is a tourist spot.
What we did see, and realized that we hadn’t seen since the last time we were here was the touts. A tourist bus pull up and it suddenly gets swarmed by touts selling umbrellas for the rain. They appear like vultures out from nowhere. It was funny to watch. Their usual practice is to put up an umbrella and push it into the hand of the unsuspecting, and then demand money. One dithery looking older gentleman accepted the umbrella and then did a runner with the salesman in hot pursuit. He managed to make it to the shelter of the buildings before handing it back, and no sale. Well done! Don’t knock the aged. It is good to see someone get away with something like this, when you see these touts buying umbrellas for 2 Euro and then stepping outside the shop and flogging them off to the unsuspecting for 8-10 euro.
What we did notice in San Remo was the number of bottle stores in San Remo. Our suspicion was that alcohol is cheaper in Italy than in France, and this was confirmed when we crossed the border back into France. The footpaths were packed with people walking the few meters across the border and then walking back with trolley loads of wine beer and spirits.
The trip back to Villeneuve-Loubet from the border wasn’t so much a series of towns as one big city along the coast, with the various towns just like suburbs of that city. Somewhere along the way we entered Monaco. This is one amazing country. We learnt a couple of things here; you can never have too much botox, you can never have too much money, and you can never be too thin (unless you are a very wealthy male and then you can be as rotund as you like). This is one very plastic society, totally artificial. Out side the casino was an endless stream of Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Mercedes, etc, etc. The preferred colour being black. It is ‘Classic Week’ this week which seems to have created a bit of excitement with old square rig boats, sailing exhibitions and races, etc. As far as the shopping goes it appeared that nothing was marked with a price, and we suspect that they believe in the ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford’ policy. Unfortunately our wallets weren’t quite big enough to buy some of the very cool things that we saw.
Despite the size of Monaco (1.9 sq km) it is surprising how many people mange to squeeze in there, how many grand old buildings, and still how they still manage to fit in a park with wonderful palm trees and fountains. Monaco has the highest concentration of plainclothes policemen, and the highest concentration of surveillance cameras. The Grand Casino was built by Charles III in 1856 to save himself from bankruptcy. It turned out to be so successful that in 1870 he abolished taxation for the people of Monaco. Wouldn’t it be a bit of a downer if you lived in France and your next door neighbour who lived in Monaco didn’t pay any tax?!
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