A bit of glamour in Cote d'Azur

Monaco is only 20 kilometres away from Nice and linked via a direct bus line going parallel to the coast. Therefore, it was almost compulsory to spend one day in the city of the millionaires in the Cote d'Azur.
Our arrival was a bit strange because the bus left us just in the beginning of a tunnel. We needed some time to understand that round the corner the real city started. First, we visited the old town, where you can admire the cathedral and the Grimaldi palace. Nevertheless, do not expect too much from them: these are modern buildings with limited historic value. From that point, though, on top of a hill, one can have good panoramic views of Monaco.

Something very surprising of Monaco is that all the buildings are very close to each other, on total disorder. There seems to be no authority to put a little bit of coherence in that development. Monaco is quite hilly (see picture above), so in many place there are public elevators to take people up and down. Prices of the houses are totally crazy: we checked in a real estate agency that they were asking 2 million euro for an apartment of 56 square metres. Ahh, I forgot to say that most of the houses of Monaco are empty, because their owners just use them not to pay taxes in their countries of origin, not for daily life.

The aquarium of Monaco is one of the most famous in the world. It has a beautiful collection of fishes, although the area with sharks is not so breathtaking. Anyway, there one can admire yellow fishes, poisonous fishes, walking fishes, small fishes,... From top of the aquarium, the views are really impressive.During our walk through Monaco, I could walk along some parts of the Formula One circuit. I must admit that the area of the swimming pool is quite scary: the road is just one metre away from the water. We were in La Rascasse, in Mirabeau, in the way uphill to the casino, in Santa Devota, in the entrance of the tunnel,... It is hard to imagine that Formula One cars are driving there, in streets which are not particularly wide.The area around the Casino is specially nice for walking, although with care, in order not to be run over by a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. In general terms, I must admit that I liked Monaco a lot and that I would not mind to have a house there...