Monaco

Wednesday night, I fired up the ol’ Citroen and drove to Monaco with fellow MVPs Jim McBee and Sue Mosher. We took le moyen Corniche to get there, a coast road that overlooks some beautiful scenes of the Meditarranean and more than a few fancy houses. (In Nice, given that a 700-square-foot apartment might set you back 120,000 euros or more, I can’t imagine what some of these houses must have cost!) When we got to Monaco proper, we drove around the town a bit until we got to Parking les pecheurs, the big parking garage downhill from the aquarium. Sadly, the aquarium was already closed, but we had a nice walk around the area, followed by supper at Le Pinocchio, an excellent Italian restaurant.
The highlight of our outing actually came as we were returning to Nice. We’d decided to take the A8 autoroute back so I wouldn’t have to drive the Corniche in the dark; we followed the signs in Monaco faithfully, but the road we wanted to take was blocked, so we had to go in the opposite direction. As a result, I got to drive about a mile of the course for the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix. I can now add “Grand Prix driver” to my resume and be at least partially accurate.