Thursday, November 19

Today we decide to head to Monaco to go to the Oceanographic Museum (Musée océanographique) a museum of marine sciences. After our morning workout and breakfast we hopped in the car and headed to Monaco. I asked Max at some point if he remembered what country we were heading to because we discussed it a bit during breakfast and he says “Japan?”. I’ll ask him again tomorrow and see if he remembers it was Monaco. Shelby looked into the size of Monaco and learned that it was the second smallest country after the Vatican City in Rome. We learned that Monaco is 2 square kilometres and has a population of just under 38,000 people. We used the opportunity to teach Shelby what the term population density meant :-).

So we are enroute to Monaco and the gps has almost got us there. We near a raised cliff area and the road heads up so we’re doing good, then we get to the top and are stuck behind some fire trucks and a few other vehicles. There are police situated through out, we’re thinking well this must be normal and/or perhaps just a bit of extra security, then about 12 police motorcycles pass us. We are supposed to make a right turn but that part of the very narrow road has a barrier blocking it off, so we head straight and loop around as the gps is recalculating our route. We look closer at the gps and it just has us looping back to that road that we can’t drive down. Which at this point Justin says “we, are the only cars, on this road!”, he was right, we’re passing people strolling the streets and couples pushing strollers on the cobble stone roads. So we decide to head down the hill and find a parkade elsewhere. We park at the marina underground parkade. Walk out on to the docks and notice a beautiful yacht called the Royal Romance. I assume it must be owned by the Prince of Monaco, but after looking it up online it is owned by a Ukrainian business tycoon and was just delivered to him on July 30 of this year, oh and it’s called a super yacht. Then we turn around and decide to head up some stairs to walk to the centre of the old town where the Ocean Museum is and Justin notices a Ferrari F40 about a 100 metres away from us and looks like it’s part of a photo shoot. It’s hard to miss as it’s candy red in colour, he tells me that it probably cost around $1.5 million. Haha, so big yachts, expensive cars, I’m starting to look at my kids and myself to see if we look presentable enough to even set foot on the streets of Monaco.

Justin pointing something out to the kids in the Monaco Marina.

We walk up and around to where the Ocean Museum is and decide we need a snack before going in. Even though the building is one of the most beautiful sights, quoted from Wikipedia, “This monumental example of highly charged Baroque Revival architecture has an impressive façade above the sea, towering over the sheer cliff face to a height of 279 feet (85.04 m). It took 11 years to build, using 100,000 tons of stone from La Turbie”.

The Oceanographic Museum situated on the cliff behind Shelby.

We start walking towards to centre of the old town where the Prince’s Palace of Monaco is. It is the official residence of the Prince of Monaco. Built in 1191 as a Genoese fortress. We notice very well dressed people walking past us, some men are wearing tuxedos with tails. At this point I’m thinking ok, they’re coming from some event, or heading to one, people cannot be dressing like this daily in Monaco. We make it up to the pedestrian streets of the old town and notice a crowd of people up ahead towards the palace. So we postpone stopping for a snack and head there to see if we can catch the tail end of whatever event is happening. We pop out in to the central square of the palace and crowds of people are waring red scarves and others have flags that read something. There are tv cameras and police on motorcycles. Also the Palace guards, firemen, police and ambulance professionals are all lined up in a formal position in the square.

The kids in the square in front of the Royal Palace while we’re trying to figure out what event we’ve just walked into.

Shelby and I approach a woman who is holding a bunch of those red scarves that we see some people wearing she gives us 2. We wrap them around our necks to fit in a bit more with the locals. My phone wasn’t working earlier, it seems that as soon as I leave France, the country I bought my sim card in, it stops working, so I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t work in Monaco. Anyway, I look at it again and it works so I google Monaco and todays date, well it turns out it is “Monaco’s National Day”, La Fête du Prince, literally Prince’s holiday, also known as The Sovereign Prince’s Day.
We watched the ceremony and thought we might get a glimpse of some royalty, but we didn’t. The kids were mostly patient, Max was fading a bit and wanted to go to the Oceanographic Museum so when we noticed other people dispersing we figured it was a  good time to get going since now instead of a snack we were in dire need of lunch and were concerned that all these people were going to flood the restaurants in the old town. I read online later that Prince Albert and Princess Charlene waved from the balcony of the palace at some point to the “waiting crowd” this might have happened after we left and we missed it.

Lunch in Monaco. Pizza and salad for the adults and ham and cheese crepes for the kiddos.

After lunch we headed to the Oceanographic Museum it was inaugurated in 1910 by Monaco’s modernist reformer, Prince Albert I. Jacques-Yves Cousteau was director from 1957 to 1988. The inside is just as beautiful as the outside. I have never been to a more beautiful aquarium. We went to the shark tank where you can pet little 2 foot long sharks, 3 were pretty docile but 1 was busy swimming around and we all found a way to get a pet in.

Shelby and Max checking out the shark tank.

Then we headed down to the aquarium and took in all the fish species that were there. Sharks and fish from all over the world. Afterwards up on the second floor is what they call the Cabinet of Curiosities, stuff that has been literally sitting in the depths of the museums vaults left to gather dust. These items were brought out and put together by an American that created the gorgeous display as soon as you enter the 2nd floor. Then on one side of the building is an area devoted to whales and sharks. And the other to A Sailor’s Career, which showcases the work of Prince Albert I. It includes the laboratory from L’Hirondelle, the first of Prince Albert’s research yachts.

Walking into the Cabinet of Curiosities. With the feature item display being a replica of the of the Megalodon jaw. A 20 metre extinct species of shark that lived over 2 million years ago.

It was a wonderful day spent in Monaco with surprises along the way. We lucked out being able to take in the celebrations for their National Day, as a moment of silence was observed for the events that took place in Paris. After a longish drive home since we ran in to some after work traffic along the way, we arrived home and had a team prep dinner event. Everyone pitched in and we had dinner on the table in record time. Bath and bed followed. Bonne Nuit!