Monaco

By dumb luck we had arrived in Monaco on the 2nd day of the Monaco Grand Prix, Europe’s premier racing extravaganza. It explained why there was an insane amount of body traffic at the train station that morning, a fact I had chalked up to the slow-down of the previous day being lifted. The real kicker upon arrival was finding that train station in Monaco did not offer baggage lockers, apparently on account of the races. This made absolutely no sense to me, but little in Europe had up until this point. Undaunted, my 40 lb backpack and I ventured out into the small principality of the French Riviera. One of the first things I found was Ferrari dealership. I took a moment to drool over these opulent machines. Here's some footage:



After traversing a Byzantine corridor of barricades, I found a set of bleachers. I tried to wedge my camera around them in order to get a shot of the race unfolding beneath, not noticing a security guard approach from behind me. I was informed that on this day, the bleachers were free, and I could take a seat to watch the race. I learned later that they were just doing time trials. This was very unexpectedly good news, so I jumped up into the bleachers, dropped my backpack off my shoulders, and began taking footage of the race. Here some of it is:

When the time trial was over, we tried to make my way down to the tracks and onto the other side. The Harbour de Hercules, where all of the million dollar yachts were anchored, was on the other side of the tracks. Also across the road was the famous Monte Carlo casino. The feat proved impossible, as we would have had to walk a mile in either direction to get around, and then a mile back to where the two points of interest happened to be situated. I surrendered them, and kept walking along. As we climbed a hilly road to get a better view of the harbor, we noticed behind us that security had closed off the road and were not allowing people to continue along the road. This had us worried until we noticed the race cars making their way out of a pit area and rolling up the hill. We had found ourselves in a perfect position to have an up-close-and-personal view of the race cars whiz by us, presumably on their way to a maintenance yard or storage facility. Here is some footage:


I stopped for a quick bite, and then we decided to cut the day short and get back to the train station and on our way to Italy. To our disconcertion, the French rail workers were causing delays up and down the board. Even though we were ~20 miles from the Italian border, it was going to prove a chore to get back into a country with sane labor policies. The train we were originally supposed to be on would be 4 hours late. After waiting, waiting, and waiting some more, we opted to take a train to the nearest Italian border town and catch a connector instead of taking a direct train to Genoa. This did work, and in half an hour we were in Ventmiglia, Italy. We arrived ~8PM, meaning that everything was beginning to shut down for the day. We grabbed some late dinner at a café near the station, cursing the French over Italian pastas and mugs of Heineken. The next train to Genoa would not be leaving until 4:30AM the next day, so it looked as though we would be spending the night in the train station.

The sleep over at the train station was a not entirely a new experience for me. I had thus far slept in a Greyhound bus station and numerous airport terminals over the course of my lively travels. We decided to sleep in shifts, for obvious security reasons. I took the first shift asleep. When I awoke at 2AM, my first inclination was to use the bathroom. This bathroom was atrocious. Here is a picture of the stall I had to relieve myself in:


Not wanting to fall asleep, I took out a bouncy ball and began to “walk” it around the terminal. I had not walked it more than 5 steps before a girl on the other side of the terminal rolled over and grabbed a Frisbee from her backpack. She came up and introduced herself. Her name escapes me, but she was from Wisconsin. For the next 15 minutes we threw the Frisbee back and forth to each other inside the terminal. It was 2AM, what few people there were in the terminal were fast asleep, and here we were engaged in Frisbee volley. Afterwards we talked and she indicated that she and her friends were heading to Nice. It was unfortunate that she was not headed our way, but I still gave her a heads up on the train situation and told her to be patient should she run into problems. She thanked me for my wisdom and candor. Exit.

The train that pulled into the station at 4:30AM was a sleeper train. Not only were there no seats on this train, but it smelled something awful. It did not help either that ~30 other people were trying to cram into the hallways of the train. We decided to take the next one, which was supposed to arrive in half and hour but didn’t until an hour and half later than that. Upon sitting, sleep swept over me in a great wave. I was tapped awake by the train conductor, who asked us if we had a reservation for the train. I looked around; the enter car was empty besides the two of us. I calmly told her we did not, as the ticket office was closed when we arrived and had not opened before we left. She said she understood, and would not press the issue further, but still felt the need to remind us that we need to ask for reservations before boarding trains. She scuttled away swiftly. I found myself in a fit of blackout rage, but luckily it quickly descended gently into the arms of sleep. I awoke as the train pulled up to the station in Genoa.