Monte Carlo, Monaco

Sorry for the delay - I was on a long weekend vacation and exhausted from the drive back. Last Wednesday the hubby and I drove down to Milan to our first hotel, then Thursday we drove to the next hotel and visited Monte Carlo. Friday was the drive over to Florence, Saturday we stayed in Florence, and Sunday we drove back home.

According to our car, we were on the road for over 24 hours. Yikes.

Anyway, today is all about Monte Carlo. Located in the second-smallest country of Monaco (Vatican City is the smallest), it sits inside of France very close to Italy, along the Mediterranean sea.

It's ritzy, expensive, and filled with pricey cars.

Oh, and yachts:

We also, of course, checked out the Casino:

(Hubby wore a nice button down to fit in)

No pictures inside since it's a casino and all, but it's really small. There are certainly other areas and tables, but we don't have enough cash for the VIP areas. Hubby sat down at a blackjack table for about 10 minutes. I won't tell you how much he lost, but it was more than we allotted to lose, so I'm putting that in the win column. 

We visited on Halloween, and since it's a French-speaking area they DO celebrate! We happened upon what I can only assume was a special holiday fair. Either we seem to hit these festivals and fairs just right, or all of Europe is in a state of perpetual festivity.

We definitely screwed up a little on dinner... we should have gone to the first restaurant we found. We ended up having some tasty omelettes though. And found a French grocery store and got some goodies. Hubby didn't let me buy these chips though:

Maybe next time. This is what we ended up with:

Not bad at all.

On Friday I'll re-cap the more lengthy and interesting Italian leg of our journey.