The country of Monaco is smaller than NY’s Central Park, 2nd smallest in the world, but you wouldn’t know it by how much the Monegasques have packed in it!
First stop: the Casino! Ironically, the citizens and residents of Monaco are not allowed to gamble, or even enter the Casino. No photography allowed inside, but I would take the Bellagio over Monte Carlo’s casino any day. Joe begs to differ. I guess you’ll have to visit them both yourself.
Outside of John Cleese and his wife, we didn’t spot any celebrities in the Casino or square.
I love European license plates because you can tell exactly what country and city each car comes from. Cars within the Union have a Union flag on the left side, and “D” stands for Deutschland. In Germany, every plate starts with one or two letters, indicating the city where the car is registered. “FR” is the code for Freiburg.
Apparently, my Rolls Royce got misdirected at customs and sent to Monaco instead of Freiburg. Whoops!
Who drives their Rolls from Freiburg to Monte Carlo anyways?
The license plate codes have actually led to several interesting experiences on our road trips. A car pulled in front of us in Vence, France (click here) and the woman came to the window asking for directions in German because she saw the letters on our plates. We started a conversation because the city-code on her plate was “FR”. She admitted that she was neugierig (nosey) and asked a lot of questions about why we lived in Freiburg. Eventually, she informed us that she used to have several American pilot friends who also studied in Freiburg and offered her husband’s business card. We are pretty positive that her “American pilot friends” were Olmstead Scholars, but the investigation is still in progress. You just don’t find American pilots randomly walking around the streets of Freiburg. Small world. Very small world.
Ok, tangent aside. One last look at Monaco…
