Day 79 ~ Part 2—Monaco, or How to Pick a Prince

Still April 11, 2018

After we finished with the Rothschild’s estate, it was time for us to leave France behind and enter the Principality of Monaco. It’s an independent state, the second smallest in the world. (For 50 points, can you name THE smallest?  No Googling.) Monaco is half the size of New York’s Central Park or only about 440 acres. It’s actually grown over the years as previous princes have enlarged their domain by building more land jutting into the sea.

The main highway runs along the coast next to a set of railroad tracks. When the railway was originally built, land near the sea wasn’t thought to be worth much. My, how things change!

Granted, the traffic is a beast and finding parking a nightmare, but isn't this teeny car a deathwish on wheels?

Monaco is divided into several provinces of which Monte Carlo is the best known. It’s named for a previous prince—Charles. Mount Charles=Monte Carlo. Building a fashionable casino for beautiful people with money to burn was his idea and it provided most of the principality’s income in those days. Now tourism of all sorts brings money into the state’s coffers.   

Our three course lunch was included on our tour. The restaurant was ready for us and presented us with a menu which was in French or possibly the unique dialect peculiar to Monaco, but it didn’t matter because we had no choices to make. What we saw was what we got.

Dejeuner turned out to be a sort of bread with olives and cheese baked into it. Yum! The skizza was like a crispy crust pizza with runny cheese and what looked like dandelion greens on it. It tasted better than it looks.

We were seated near Michel, our knowledgeable guide. He’d impressed me with the tour so far, so I asked him what course of study he’d had in order to become a guide. He surprised me by telling me he majored in it in college. He’d studied art, history, botany, geography and several languages. Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the main course—a chicken breast on a bed of green beans and mashed potatoes. It was well seasoned and tender.

The dessert was delicious, but it didn’t look like any cheese cake I’ve ever seen. It was more like a shortcake, not too sweet.

Then they brought espresso coffee so strong it grabbed the spoon out of my hand and beat me with it when I tried to add sugar! (Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but I was grateful for the teensy size of the cup. If it’d been any bigger, I wouldn’t sleep for a week!)

Handsome is as handsome does, my dad always says. There's my prince in the gray poncho with Herkimer strapped to his back.

After our meal, we headed to the “Rock” section of Monaco and I was happy to see that after we left the bus in an underground garage, we were to reach the top via escalators and elevators. The walk to the church where Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier in 1956 was a slight incline through charming narrow streets. It was sprinkling, not raining as hard as it had in Rome, but hard enough that the DH had to don a poncho to protect Herkimer, my POC (portable oxygen concentrator.) On the way we passed by the villas owned by Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie, but the hedges in front of them were too high for us to get a good picture.

Monaco seems to feel about Princess Grace the way the Brits feel about Princess Di. Her memory is held in very high regard and she’s credited with being the best ambassador the small country could have hoped for. In fact, Michel told us, Grace Kelly’s marriage to the prince was arranged. Monaco was a bit light in the pockets and Aristotle Onassis advised Prince Rainier to solve his money troubles by marrying a wealthy, preferably famous, American woman. Onassis’s first suggestion was Marilyn Monroe, but the Grimaldi family (the surname of the ruling family) was, like most of their people, Catholic. Marilyn was considered too wild. Grace Kelly was the second runner up.

After a very splashy, well-publicized courtship, Grace and Prince Rainier were married in this lovely cathedral. MGM paid for the entire wedding, from the gown to the flowers to the reception, in exchange for the rights to film and market the whole thing. After all, she was still under contract to them for the next 5 years. They had a vested interest in seeing her star in ascendance and what’s more glamorous than a fairy tale wedding with a real live prince as the groom?

But fairytales in real life don’t always end in a happily ever after. Alfred Hitchcock, with whom she’d worked on several movies, might have had a premonition about it because he refused to attend the wedding, telling her she was making a mistake. In fact, her new husband wouldn’t allow her to leave the country to star in any more movies, especially once the pope weighed in on the subject. The pope said it wasn’t right for a princess to be kissing anyone else but her husband, so being a romantic leading lady in Hollywood was out of the question.

Too bad he didn’t also tell the prince it wasn’t okay for him to cheat on his princess with other women either.

But no matter what their life together was like, they’re side by side for eternity now, buried under the heavy flagstones in the church where they were married. Grace’s grave always has flowers on it and her son is the new Prince of Monaco.

I walked hand in hand with my prince back to the bus garage, not minding the rain, content to go at our own pace because we’d headed back before the rest of the group. Along the way we enjoyed the lovely park terracing down the sheer face of the “Rock.” I felt so grateful for my life and this wonderful round the world adventure. And also for my life at home, my loved ones and friends. I’m a blessed girl and I know it.

The trick is to always remember it.