Day 6 Monday 3 June

This is officially the first day of our Rhone River Cruise but after checking in with our Guide, Sylvia, we booked our evening dinner tour and headed off to explore more of this picturesque City/Country on another overcast and at times rainy day. We started with the very nice Japanese gardens near the Fairmont Hotel and worked our way along the beach  for a couple of kilometers and then headed up the hills via millions of stairs and a couple of lifts to get a better view of this beautiful place.
 The French are very dog oriented - they have them everywhere. In hotel rooms, cafes, and they dont even pick up after them! - we sat and watched today as dogs with owners came, dropped samples and left, and after about 15 minutes a man came around and removed all the dog poo!! There are signs that the dogs are not allowed on the grass!! and they aren't even on leads most of them but they are well behaved, mostly small dogs - lots of Chihuahuas (a lady told us that all the Russian prostitutes have Chihuahuas) and lots of other breeds.


Mid afternoon we staggered back to our Hotel via a little supermarket in the Metropole Shopping center to get some sustenance and rested/ slept in preparation for our tour.

The town planning here leaves a bit to be desired - they have beautiful old buildings everywhere and they allow ugly new ones to block any view of them, or from them. Maybe a lack of space makes it a necessity. Monaco is a tax free haven but the Government gets their money from you in other ways - such as if you buy a house or apartment (minimum cost probably 3 million Euros) they charge the buyer 22% of the purchase price ( about 660,000 euros or AUD $858,000) to transfer the title! When they run low on money I guess they just allow another apartment block to be built!!

The evening tour took us to the top of that cliff we went under, to visit the Palace and the Church where Grace Kelly Married Prince Rainier, which were of course beautiful and so were all the little houses in the very narrow streets which, naturally, cost as much as the GDP of some small countries! After that we headed to the Restaurant on the mountain at the other end of Monaco on the border with Italy, climbing up very narrow streets which are hardly wide enough for two cars to pass.
The "Vista Palace Restaurant" is perched on a rib of the mountain with 270 degree views which take your breath away. Our tour party found our way to random seats in tables of ten. The meal was very pleasant but the company was lively and we could see we were in for a great trip!
As the sun went down at about 9pm (very late compared to Queensland), with the whole of Monaco layed out before us, we all got out cameras and went mad before climbing back on the coach for the trip back to the Fairmont Hotel to collapse into bed.

Our Hotel mid picture on another overcast and drizzly day but we did not let it dampen our adventures.

The Fabulous view from the Vista Palace Restaurant at about 9.30pm. The densely lit section is Monaco and the rest is France or Italy. Monaco is popular because it is a tax free haven for the wealthy.