Friday, October 02, 2009

France trip part 2 - Monte Carlo



Endless luxury hotels that overlooked the French Riveria. Very posh, high-class and sophisticated architecture

Ok, I´ve been bugged by my dear sister to update my blog.

There´s just an endless amount of clothes to wash and iron, not to mention the fact that the entire apartment was so dirty after 1 week of not cleaning it. Our fridge was also completely empty, which meant that I had to change into the "snap-back-into-reality-Pris-and-think-of-what-to-cook-if-not-you-starve" mode.

You know how you´re in denial the first few days after a superb holiday? You just want to reminisce as much as possible, so you put off all your mundane to-do chores and shut it out of your conscious mind until it gets so much that you become increasingly agitated about the length of the list such that it penetrates your consciousness whether you like it or not?

I was like that this week.

Anyway, blogging gives me a chance to re-live my memorable experiences, so here I am with part 2.

Monte Carlo is only 30 minutes away from Nice by car. Hence, we drove our rented car to ogle at the luxurious, unaffordable cars in front of its famous casino. The road to Nice is so scenic, one is treated to endless views of the sea, yachts and expensive houses along the way.
One of the views along the way. I think I should try selling this photo as a postcard, what do you think?
The roundabout in front of the casino, notice the tourists in the middle and the hills in the background? Monte Carlo is situated on extremely hilly grounds. We walked along the famous F1 racetrack, ie. the streets. They are so windy that one is amazed at how race cars can maneuver the turns at over 200km/h!
Above: The world-famous casino in Monte Carlo, where there´s an endless stream of Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Jaguars, Ferraris. You name it, they have it. There´s only 2 types of people there. The super-rich and the gawkers (aka. tourists)
Typical sights: Real estate agencies selling properties, some of which do not even have an advertised price tag / yachts / old-timers / yacht insurances?!? Where in the world would you find advertisement for yacht insurances?

During our visit there we noticed that many people had the "authorised personnel" passes because of a yacht exhibition. My curiosity being aroused, we looked around and noticed that a yacht can cost up to 16million€!!!! One can get disillusioned by the unequal distribution of wealth in the world.


In front of some *****(*) hotel
Ok so this doesn´t look very Monte Carlo-ish. There´s a Japanese garden in the middle of nowhere.... I guess even rich people need some time to be close to nature. Surprisingly enough, when one is THAT rich, they aren´t snobbish anymore. Its those who are a bit upper-middle-class but not in the top league yet, who are the most flamboyant and stuck-up ones -ie. those in Cannes (coming up soon)

2 comments:

Sabrina said...

Hey,

sorry for bugging you but I've been waiting for this photos... :) Thanks for uploading everything.

We call those people 'nouveau riche', i.e. the ones that weren't born with money but happened to get some (inheritance for example). They are the stuck up ones that are just painful to have around. No class either, just snobbishness...

x

Pris said...

Dear Jie Jie! :)

No need to apologize! Its good to get bugged too. I was taking my time getting the photos up and its always nice to have an updated blog. Still have 2 cities, Vence and the "Sur mer" photos to go.

OH yeah, Nouveau riche aren´t nice to be around at all.... Do you speak French too? When are you coming back to Germany this year? How´s things?

xoxo Hab dich liebt!

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