Mark's birthday in Monaco

Well I am now 50.... and what can I say , “I had a fantastic day ” so many things that I wanted to do and see in this part of the world - and to do them on my birthday was unbelievable. I have talked about visiting the Monte Carlo casino for years and I am sure that many people have heard me talk about this over the last 3-4 years.

To Dominique’s hard work this has now happened.

The day started off with a small walk with Lucas and Dominique to find some breakfast and to my surprise I received and read the many birthday cards which have travelled across the world hidden in suitcases. Combined with all the text messages sent to Dominique’s telephone for me and the morning started very special and very humbling...so a big thank you to all...very much appreciated.
We had decided that a lunch would be more appropriate to dinner as we had to leave the following morning on the 5:56am train. To make lunch even more enjoyable we booked a restaurant high up on a hill called Vistaero at Vista Palace Hotel in Roquebrunne cap-Martin. Its positioned high on a cliff top overlooking the principality of Monaco.

Upon our arrival the flash cars started appearing everywhere...unbelievable signs of wealth everywhere you could see. There were a few parked outside the hotel entrance and we noticed an office where one could rent a car if they wished.
We were ushered into the lounge bar where an area had been prepared for our aperitif drinks. Eleven seats/ couches around 3 coffee tables each laid out with small dishes of olives, chips and spicy nuts.

I couldn’t believe the view out full length windows. Like nothing like I had ever seen before there below us I could see the whole country of Monaco! We were arriving in 3 taxis and as I waited for the others to arrive in the next two taxis I sat in amazement at the furniture, paintings, flowers, decorations. I hope the photos will do it justice.

Champagne and toasting aside we moved downstairs to our dining table....another equally amazing area with a superbly decorated table and still with that same great view. We were lucky to have Christian on hand, Gianina’s new husband and I asked him to choose a red and white as he had done an excellent job the night before choosing a wine. He didn’t disappoint again. After ordering, before our entrees came out was another aperitif of this sticks of carrot, celery, fennel etc with 3 different dippings ‘sauces’. Olive tapenade, olive oil and garlic mayonnaise.

Entrees eaten, our main meal arrived about six of which were covered by a stainless steel warming lid which 3 x the wait staff removed in unison to everyone’s delight.

My steak... it was delicious...

Looking like the King and Queen at the head of the table.

The staff were also grinning and pleased with the ‘theatre’ of the moment.
Next was the “surprise” birthday cake. Think sponge cake filled with alot of different fruits and creamy custard. Also covered in fruit. It had a ‘Happy Birthday Mark’ plaque on it. I was told it was a keep sake and not to eat it. Following that was coffee and towers of sweet treats.

Here's Lucas helping himself to a treat.

We well and truly enjoying our afternoon and soon it was time to head down the mountain and pay a little visit to the Grand Casino.
You can tell by the photos the weather was misty rain. It limited us in walking around Monaco but we had fun anyway. The casino building was more amazing than I was ready for and built in the late 1880’s it truly is grand. The gambling rooms were beautifully decorated. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed in... so no photos to show.
Thanks to Lucas’s roulette training he gave us the night before in Nice I felt confident to place a bet on “lucky 27”....that didn’t come up at all and after a few losses, I changed tack and went for the rows and ended up a winner getting all my money back and having a nice little casino chip to take home as a souvenir of the day.



As we headed back to Nice I started to reflect on a truly wonderful day and a great experience as a dream came true that will not be forgotten thanks to my wonderful wife.

I will certainly be watching the Monaco F1 Grand Prix with renewed interest this year.

Georgina's birthday

We hit the local flower and fruit market in th emorning.It was great and we enjoyed breakfast in the sun. Around mid-morning we met up with Gianina and Chris. It was just lovely to see their faces.
Lounging on the rooftop. Afternoon drinks at the rooftop bar of our hotel.

Michelle and Steve arranged a fabulous picnic lunch of goodies from the market - for Georgina's birthday.



What Lucas found when he went to the loo. Mark had to pay the 35 cents to go and photograph this teeny tiny toilet

Mark catching up on the sporting news...

Tomorrow is Mark's birthday. We leave Nice the following morning at 5:56am. As we will then be on the boat for 5 nights, I am unsure when I can next post a blog. So don't fret if you don't hear.

Hope all are well. We are missing you all but loving this little family catch up here. xD

We arrived in Nice

Checking out the view from our balcony, We have a big garden directly in front and are only 2 rooms from the water front.
We met Georgina and Lucas on the promenade. Thrilling to see them. We had a couple of hours strolling, checking out each others photos while sharing stories.
Just a bit excited and having fun.
We had 6 for dinner with Michelle and Steve. We ate at a place Laureen recommended. REally delicious food but the most ridiculous size serves... each pasta dish could have fed 3 adults easily.....

Have chatted with Gianina and planning to see them this morning... yay!

The intrepid walkers

The weather has been just perfect. We all caught the train to Vernazza. Our plan was to look around a little then do the 2km walk to Monterossa. It’s another beautiful little town, though with more shops than Manarola.
Laureen only had an hour before she had to head back to Nice but she and I still managed to get our shoes off and dip our feet in the Ligurian Sea. It was VERY chilly water!
The rest of us figured an early lunch would be good before we started our walk. A delicious meal of fresh local seafood and salad sitting in the main piazza was just divine.

The walk was listed as taking min 2 hrs and it started with a very step flight of steps right from the piazza. After 10 mins we saw a sign that said the track was closed in 500m – at ‘the gate’. We figured we would just reach the gate and turn back.
We passed this funny little monorail style lift for carting their good up the hill. Notice the angle, seat and little trailer.
Vernazza getting smaller

Up and up and up we went. Endless flights of rock steps built into the steep hill, all varying heights and depths. We needed to stop several times for our palpitating hearts to settle enough to move on. There was no gate and we ran into a few people coming the other way who said they had got through ok. FYI – there have been landslides on a couple of paths completely blocking them but we figured we would be careful and keep going.

Our destination in the distance. After about an hour of non-stop climbing we gratefully reached a plateau. As we ambled happily along we notice a helicopter going back and forth in the distance. Picking up large loads of rocks (in white plastic bags) and dropping them down. Each trip back and forth was only 2-3 mins.
At many points the path got very narrow. At times no more than a 30cm. At other times 3 split logs about 10cm wide were tied loosely together with one piece of string, and placed to span where the path had completely fallen away. It was a little precarious to say the least to be on narrow crumbling paths. 40 more minutes of strolling/climbing/descending we realised the bags of rocks were being dropped near the path. As we got closer to the drop points the path was blocked with bags of rocks. We had no option but to squeeze between and half climb over them. There were several drop points along a section of about 300m of the path.

We needed to get through the point where they were dropping, we waited for a drop and rushed ahead as fast as possible to get out of their way. No such luck! The path was blocked completely with bags and the helicopter was coming!! The drop point was no more than 10-20 m from us and the down wind was very strong. Mark’s cap flew off and disappeared. I managed to grab mine as I ducked under Marks arm. We all huddled together waiting the 10 seconds for the chopper to drop and go. It seemed to take so long. I was frozen in place thinking it was a very long 10 seconds!
Steve said he was watching as the helicopter struggled to drop its cargo. He saw it shaking side to side/ up and down... finally after at least a minute it finally took off. It was very scary but exhilarating.
Then it was a mad dash to climb over the bags only to be blocked by another 5 bags. Kindly a couple of the workers helped us through, gripping our hand so we didn’t fall down the steep hill while we tried to get around the bags.
Once clear we were berating ourselves a little for ignoring the closed path signs, but also giggling from the experience.



The last 30 mins was all downhill and steps. It got to the point that my knees and legs were like jelly. I dont know if it was from exertion or latent shock setting in.

We enjoyed a well earned beer when we arrived in Monterossa before getting the train back home. An easy dinner of nibblies while watching the sunset and we were in bed asleep by 8pm, utterly exhausted!

Morning in Manarola

Being an early riser I couldn't resist heading off on a walk with camera in hand ...

The steep terraced gardens above the town.


Panorama of the town..
Our apartments. The yellow building was where Laureen, Michelle & Steve stayed. Mark and I were in the pink building to the right with the white window and our washing out.
Manarola from the cemetry.
The cemetry was perched high on the opposing hill. Due to a lack of space they stack the coffins 4 high. It was very interesting to stroll through. 95% of the graves have photos of the deceased on the front. Many repeated surnames, clearly local families for generations.
Our room.... and views from the bed.

What a fun day! The walks between the 5 towns here are very popular with some rugged and beautiful scenery.
After a breakfast of coffee and warm marmalade filled croissant, Mark Laureen and I headed towards Riomaggiore with Michelle & Steve about 10 min behind us.


We had lots of laughs along the way and Mark remembered a photo of me at a cafe on a cliff from when I was last here and was keen to see where it was.


After about 30 mins of strolling and stopping to take in the views we arrived at the Riomaggiore end of the path and at THE cafe. We planned on another coffee, as it was now about 10:15 but then figured we needed to celebrate.... and a glass of Prosecco was the only way.

After a whiling away nearly an hour we headed in to Riomaggiore passing Michelle & Steve on their way home! Of course we recommended they stop for a drink when they passed the cafe.
There towns are so beautiful... and living in this relatively remote place would pose many challenges for things we take for granted. As the streets are often very tight or are just a set of stairs everything has to be carried or carted in and out. There are one or two rubbish collection depots per town and all household rubbish has to be taken there.

We spent a good couple of hours then stopped at THE cafe again on our way back, this time for a delicious Panini with prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella and tomato.... and a local beer.


The rest of the day was spent chatting and hanging out together in the lounge and balcony of the main building. This time Mark and I are across the lane in a larger room with a kitchen.


This came in handy and after watching the sunset together we gathered at our place for pasta, salad, wine, limoncello and chocolate. For those who haven’t tried limoncello, imagine lemon meringue pie in a glass.... and 30% proof!! Bloody delicious.
It was a great night! We laughed and laughed......



Im not sure how this blog will load. Fingers crossed it makes some sense.

xD

Dubai - Nice - Cinque Terra

This was quite along day... 7 hr flight went fairly easily and it was just fantastic to walk through the doors of Nice airport to see the smiling faces of Laureen and Brodie.

Brodie is living in Nice at present and drove us around for an hour or so before we stopped for some lunch and caught the train to Cinque Terra.

With a change of train in both Ventimiglia and then Genoa it took 6 hrs to get to La Spezia.

Laureen had prepared for the trip and had a bag containing bread, wine, cheese, dip and strawberries, along with a couple of pastries be enjoyed a picnic dinner on the train. What fun we had!

We arrived at 9:20pm into La Spezia and missed the train to Manarola where we are staying. Rather than waiting nearly 2 hrs for the next train we jumped into a cab and it was a 15 min very scary ride around the mountains.

Manarola is on a very steep hill and no cars can drive down into it. Getting the cab meant being dropped in a carpark and having to hike down into the town. (The cab driver had very little english and after pulling up the car said "stop... now you walk".

We arrived at Arpaiu around 10pm and just as we were about to open the door to the building when Steve and Michelle popped their heads out... we were thrilled to see them but after a quick hello we headed to our respective rooms... exhausted!!!

It was a long day....

Dubai - day 2

Ok, Dubai has so many mosques .... and at 4:55am we found out what it was like to have them all competing with each other to be heard. This being my first visit to a Moslem country I showed how naive I am. I thought that being called to prayer was done by horns/bells. NO.... its a man singing over the loud speakers... so when there are 3 within 150m of our hotel, you end up with 3 different male voices going for it... and not in time with each other and not very harmoniously. Clearly one bloke slept in when he didn't start until 4:58!!


We enjoyed a leisurely start to our day with blogging, coffee then breakfast chatting with a lovely woman from LA. She is travelling on her own, is in her 70's and is here to go to the Dubai Cup... alone! Thats brave! Its the richest horse race in the world. The owners get the prize but the viewers aren't allowed to gamble. She told us stories where in the past visitors to Dubai have brought their own bookie!

With time getting away we headed off and got on one of the local water taxi's across the river.



It was a bit of fun and far from complied with any level of OH&S standard in Australia.

We were keen to get out into the desert but had heard several reports on what the experience would be like. Reports were that during the sunset/ dinner safari’s, the driving through the sand dunes was pretty marvellous but once you get out to the ‘Bedouin camp’ for the dinner you become part of a much larger group of up to 200 tourists and it was all pretty contrived. A bit like Dreamworld goes Bedouin. I was not keen on that! Asking around at our hotel they offered another option for us. (they highlighted their belief that guests who choose to stay with them, do so – so as to have an individual experiences) Therefore they were able to recommend a private trip by Hummer and desert bbq – just us and a guide. So at 4:30pm Ahim arrived to pick us up and off we went. Ahim was a very friendly and interesting guy who has been providing such trips for plebs like us up to the royalty of several countries, for 18 years. (he is also married to an aussie and they spend 6 mths a year in Cairns)

It took nearly an hour to get to the desert & after picking up some charcoal and letting some air out of the tyres we were on the sand. Riding the sand dunes was exhilarating and scary. To me the way Ahim read the dunes was very reflective of watching an experienced surfer read the waves. After about 45 min we came over a dune to find a lone tent behind it. This was to be our private spot for dinner. Ahim pointed to the highest of the surrounding sand dunes and said “go sit up there and enjoy the sunset, while I set up camp”.

We happily complied (climbing the sand was not so easy) and watched the sun become a deep red and slowly sink. By now the camp was set up included a large carpet on the sand surrounded by big cushions, a fire was nearby to keep us warm and about 8 of those bamboo kerosene lanterns surrounded it for light.

It was a lovely evening of chat, an amazing meal of marinated bbq’d meat, salad and hommus and even a glass of wine. We finished with star watching, and more lying around chatting.

A panorama of the desert.

There was quite a breeze for a while there and the bbq coals were really sparking and flying..

Though this picture isnt clear, I thought it may show how beautul it was at night.

More soon
xD