9:00 AM. I don’t know if this was planned on Disney’s part, but after peaking at La Spezia in Italy, the meeting times for excursions suddenly became reasonable. We even had time to eat a reasonable breakfast (with proteins!) before making our way down to Studio Sea. I’ve never been to Studio Sea of my own volition, but I’ve had almost half my excursions meet here, so much that I discovered the tables, inlaid with a design of a film canister with a movie title and director’s credit, are all inside jokes with founding castmember names on them. I’m guessing they’re all founding castmembers, actually, since I found our captain’s name on one of the tables.
It was time for another tender. On the port excursion presentations playing on TV that I had watched endlessly while I wrote, they had made a big deal about how Villefranche was the captain’s favorite port and that he’d pull right in so that he could enjoy the marvelous view. They weren’t lying. We were surrounded on all sides by hills and the town built into them (all our harbors are flat affairs back in the states…what entices you to get off a boat to climb a sheer cliffside?) that made for a view that was, well, marvelous. Brightly painted villas nestled into the rocky hill alongside terraced apartment buildings, each only six stories or less, with the most beautiful, vivid purple flowers cascading like ivy off every surface in between. We were the only large ship in the harbor, dwarfing the yachts and sailboats floating idle in the early morning light. We were not in the main port, the Port de la Darse, but the port of the old town, and the tiny little dock that our tender pulled alongside gave the entire place a unique feeling of quaintness that had been lost at a lot of the other, far more industrial ports.
We emptied out into a parking lot that was still active with commuters trying to navigate through the sea of lethargic tourists just standing in clumps wherever they saw fit. There were at least 5 tour guides waiting for us here, and the small space to maneuver meant a lot of milling about as people slipped between each other as the groups tried to sort out. There was a tent set up by Disney in the back of the lot, but its intended use as a meeting point was immediately discarded when huge throngs of people, deciding that 10 minutes off the boat they were already sick of the sun, gathered beneath it in no particular order. Everything sorted itself out eventually and we followed our guide, who said he would introduce himself once we were on the bus and out of this madness, led us away. We walked toward the citadel, the massive 16th century castle that runs alongside the port, and ducked our heads as we passed through an archway to walk uphill to the waiting buses. There were more buses here than seemed logically possible: the small winding path inside the citadel that served as the road in and out opened up to this parking area, but the face was so cramped it looked as if at least one of the buses had been constructed there on the spot because there was no other way it could’ve gotten there. I had faith in our driver, though, since if I had learned one thing about driving in Europe, it’s that no space is too small to fit a vehicle in.
Once we had situated ourselves on the bus, we were introduced to our tour guide, Frederic, pronounced as you’d pronounce Frederique stateside, a tall, thin, balding-but-making-it-work man whose lively demeanor made him seem far younger than he probably was. He introduced us to our driver, whose name I have since forgotten. The driver didn’t speak much English, so our tour was bilingual, English on the mic and French off when Frederic would explain what we were all laughing at. He was quite funny and seemed to take great pleasure in going “off-script”. He was quite happy when he found his running joke quite early in the day: the early morning was hot and it was only going to get hotter, so he promised not to tell anyone if we wanted to chuck the whole tour thing and just go to the beach. Throughout the day, as we got back on the bus increasingly exhausted and sweat-drenched, he would take a beat and then say “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the beach?”
The sliding puzzle of the parked buses was sorted out and we were on our way to our first stop, a panoramic view of Villefranche overlooking the Port de la Darse. I don’t know what it is about vacationing, but I can’t get enough of these stops. There’s tons of them along the lesser highways back home but I’ve never once stopped of my own accord to take pictures, but I snap a million of them when a bus lets me off at one. It was a wonderful view, the harbor in the foreground, enclosed by rocky outcroppings, a lighthouse perched at the end of a long and narrow wall extending out into the deep blue water. Nice lay along the shore in the distance, a huge concentration of buildings built right on the edge of the water, as if they were being forced into the sea by the overcrowding. As you got further away from the shore, buildings became more and more interspersed with trees, until you reached the mountains in the hazy distance.
After snapping my zillion pictures, I looked down at the graffiti that had been etched into the rock wall keeping us from falling over the cliff we were standing atop. Right in front of me, written in black:
LiiLOU ♥
LOVE YOU
FOR A LiiFETiiME*
I called Lisa over to see it and we shared our tender moment overlooking the French Riviera, thanking whoever loved Liilou for a liifetime for enshrining our names here, too.
We boarded the bus again and were off to Nice. It had become accepted that whichever side of a bus you sat on, the interesting things to see would be on the other side. We chose poorly in our seating arrangements and were able to see the bottom half of the war memorial and the sea-front side of the Promenade des Anglais. We would only tour the Promenade des Anglais on the bus and I don’t think we missed very much: it was a seaside town popular with the English upper class in the 19th century and has remained one of the main places that quite a few wealthy people and quite a few more people who like to pretend come to feel glamorous as they bask in the sunlight. In other words, something not really all that interesting to me or Lisa. There was a cute story about the Hotel Negresco, Nice’s most posh hotel and a historic landmark which is owned by a single little old lady. Its opulence apparently caught the eye of Bill Gates, who handed the old lady a blank check as his offer to buy the place. The old lady refused since she loved the place so much and she figured she didn’t have nearly enough time left on earth to spend the money anyway.
The bus parked alongside a beach, but it was not our destination: we were crossing the street, through an archway that smelled of urine, to enter the Cours Seleya. The Cours Seleya is, on most days, a flower and produce market where gardeners and farmers from miles around come to hock their wares, filling several blocks with heavenly smells and dazzling colors. On Monday, the day we were touring it, it becomes an antique market. This was genuinely depressing, but not because we were missing out on the cornucopia of yummy foodstuffs (although I guess that was a part of it), but because this was the final port and we were pretty much tapped out on funds. Antique in Europe makes the antiques to be found in America laughable: these were not the pots and pans our great grandmothers used, these were actual things from antiquity. The dust that had settled on half these things was older than the oldest offering you can generally find stateside. We followed Frederic through the marketplace, weaving our way through the stalls and blankets daring us to knock over their delicate offerings. He was giving us a quick tour before we had some free time to wander about. He made it clear that the tour was only optional, but that didn’t matter to most as they had already wandered off into the labyrinth of ancient wonders.
We ducked down and alleyway and were about to make our way past a non-descript building when Frederic stopped us to point it out. This was the Chapelle Sainte Rita and, despite a barely-decorative faux-columned entryway, could very well have been mistaken for a warehouse, if it was given any consideration at all. It was common for churches to have these nondescript facades at one time so that the impact of the interior decoration would have that much more force upon entering. Once Frederic led us through the doors, it was easy to see what they were trying to achieve: every inch of the interior was covered in gold and marble, with paintings and frescoes adorning the walls and the ceilings. It mirrored our experience at the Vatican: how did your average peasant, covered to the waist in cow manure, stand a chance against this? It was a bit excessive, actually, and Frederic noted that although it was Baroque, he considered it Rococo, which, if we were at a dinner party, would probably have gotten him laid.
We were left to our own devices from that point on, and Lisa and I wandered dejected through the antique market, depressed that we couldn’t afford anything we wanted, and even if we could, we probably wouldn’t be able to transport it home. I had my eyes on a collection of phones that were seemingly designed in the times before they had actually nailed down what a phone should look like. Lisa went even more impractical, coveting entire dining room sets that looked like they once held an official food-taster. We eventually broke away from the market and went into the tacky tourist shops that lined the Cours Seleya to buy some trinkets that we didn’t really want but at least could afford.
As our free time dwindled, Lisa decided she needed to use the restroom, so we stopped at a café and ordered an espresso. I sipped at it while she was away and the first sip, undoctored, was so strong that it forced my right eye shut in protest for a few seconds. I dropped in the sugar cubes that they’d served alongside it and found it quite palatable after that, so much so that Lisa returned to an empty cup. When she went up to order a second cup I told her to order Crepes au sucre as well, as staring at the menu while waiting for her I had worked up a craving for one. It was after we had ordered that we realized that free time was over in 5 minutes. We had already breached etiquette: Lisa had ordered the initial espresso at the bar since we were just running in and out, but now we had settled at a table and were circumventing the waiter with our second bar-order. Now we were running late on time and had to ask for the crepe and espresso to go! They were more than happy to oblige, but we over-tipped and left with our tails between our legs just in case.
As is always the case, when you rush, there’s no reason to rush. The bus had not arrived yet, and the group had gathered in the pee-smelling entrance to the Cours Seleya. There were artists lining the entryway now, and our milling about meant less foot traffic passing by their wares, so we were either going to throw a few coins their way or get a move on. We moved across the street where the view was much better anyway: a nude beach. Well, semi-nude, as it was more an option than a requirement. It was, surprisingly, full of families, with fully clothed adults and children weaving between the topless and bottomless sunbathers. My initial discomfort with the tons of children running around faded as I caught my excessive puritanism and shamed myself for it: was I really uncomfortable with a child, hell, an adult seeing a naked human body in a nonsexual context? Well, for them, anyway, we were staring at the naked people like hungry dogs. Luckily, the bus came first and we were on our way to have lunch in Eze.
Well, almost.
We had specifically chosen this tour because it included visits to Nice, Monaco and Eze, three places we really wanted to see and didn’t want to have to choose between. All the tours available seemed to offer some combination of two of the three, but Nice and Monaco had lunch in Eze in its tour description and so we went with that. Everyone we told were shocked that we had gamed the system in this way: they were looking to do exactly the same thing but had to give up one of the options, and were shocked when we showed them the part about lunch in Eze on our tour. We thought we’d lucked out, especially since as we learned more and more about our destination Eze had inched up in our estimation and then completely overtaken Nice and Monaco once we saw how much we enjoyed the other Medieval towns we’d visited. As we approached Eze on the bus, we even considered skipping lunch altogether so we would have more time to explore the town.
To say that we had lunch in Eze is to say you had been to New York City because you’d seen it across the way from New Jersey. We were eating lunch in Eze, alright, but not in the charming Medieval village perched high on a clifftop overlooking a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean. We were in the Eze on the opposite side of the bottom of that cliff, with no view of the Mediterranean whatsoever and only the very tip of Eze visible high up above us. We were in the tourist trap town that had sprung up at the bottom of the steep road leading to Eze, the point where the bus dropped you off if you were going to visit, and worst of all, we were forbidden to go up to Eze proper because of time constraints. Instead, we were to eat at the Auberge du Cheval Blanc, whose promising menu was not on offer to us. Neither was assigned seating, and the crowded restaurant seemed ill-equipped to seat the crowd milling about at its door. We were left to find our own seating, and we found ourselves outdoors, overlooking an uninteresting street. We sat and sulked until we struck up a conversation with our tablemates, a couple from Miami who had cruised about seven million more times than we had. They were very nice and were equally disappointed about the false advertising in this Eze lunch, especially since the food was as big a disappointment as the lack of atmosphere. When the meal ended, I wandered away in protest and bought some frites from a stand that seemed to be catering to some locals, which pleased me greatly but shocked Frederic, who had everything he’d heard about the fabled American gluttony confirmed as I boarded the bus wolfing down my fries.
After a bit of a drive, we were in clean, modern, upwardly mobile Monaco. Literally upwardly mobile, as the .75 square mile country has a limited amount of space on which to build and so the only place to build is up and, in the case of Fontvielle, out into the Mediterranean. I had thought Monaco’s charm would lie in its comically-small size but what it lacks in real estate it makes up for in density. Every possible inch of land that could be built upon has been built upon and thus the charm is lost, unless you’re a big fan of apartment buildings, which is what we drove past for most of the bus-bound portion of our tour.
We parked in an underground parking lot built into a cliffside, purportedly one of the few public parking areas in all of Monaco, and made our way up to the Musee Oceanographique, more commonly known as the Cousteau Aquarium, for Jacques Cousteau, who directed the museum for 17 years long after it had been already established, but he became so famous during this time that he and the museum have become inextricably linked, so that it is officially unofficially renamed for him. We were, unfortunately, not going inside, but were instead using it as a meeting point after our tour and free time, since, although the bus would still be in the same parking lot, it would not be where we left it and thus we needed Frederic to guide us. We walked past the Jardin Exotique on our left and a gorgeous row of those rich purple-pink flowers that were spilling over every wall in Villefranche on our right. Frederic informed us that these flowers were called Bougainvillea and that the purple-pink coloration was not from the flower itself, which was tiny and white, but from the leaves immediately surrounding the flower. The row of Bougainvillea led us directly to our destination, the Cathedral of Monaco.
The Cathedral of Monaco was built in 1878 and isn’t really noteworthy for its architecture or decoration. We were here for a bit of death tourism. The Cathedral of Monaco houses the remains of several centuries worth of Grimaldi lineage (the ruling family of Monaco), most notably that of Princess Grace and the late Prince Rainier (well, they’re both late, but he’s later than she is). Princess Grace, for those of you not in the know, was American-born Grace Kelly who met Prince Rainier while attending the Cannes Film Festival. She one-upped the American dream by living the Disney dream by becoming a Princess and living happily ever after. The tombs are at the back of the cathedral and the line forms comically around the unused central portion, where the worshipping usually would take place. There are guards here, not for any security purposes, just to keep the line moving. Every so often they would shout loudly one of two things: keep the line moving, or be quiet. Shouting “be quiet” never ceases to be funny to me. We shuffled disinterested past the grave sites much in the same way you walk past the rest of a graveyard on the way to visit a deceased relative’s tombstone: interesting, hey, look at the date on that one, that’s a hell of a name, that sort of thing. Although I’ve seen most of her films, perhaps I was too young to be so enamored with her princess-hood to garner much awe for her gravesite.
We made our way back out into the sunlight and walked up a narrow street to the Place du Palais, the Palace Square. We would have some free time here before we made our way back to the bus to be brought over to the Casino. Directly in front of us was the Prince’s Palace which was impressive for being so unimpressive. The entire thing looked like a second-rate theme park knockoff of what a palace should look like, down to the chintzy castle-looking portion. This is because that’s essentially what it is: a recreation of something authentic that once stood there, and the cheesy castle portion, meant to replicate the original 12th century fortress that originally stood there, is actually the most recent addition. There’s a statue out front of Francois Grimaldi, the founder of Monaco (I guess), who took over the castle that formerly stood here in the most non-heroic, devious way possible: he dressed as a monk, begged its occupants for shelter, only to murder the guard who let him in with a sword he had stowed under his robes. He then called his cousin, Rainier I (whose descendants rule Monaco to this day) and a contingent of men to slaughter everyone else inside. This is, of course, honored by the statue of Francois Grimaldi in his monk’s robe, complete with swords, and also by the coat of arms above the door of the Palace, where two monks with swords keep watch.
The Place du Palais offered the best views of every part of Monaco that you weren’t already standing on, being high up above the rest of the country on the section of Monaco known to the locals as le Rocher, the Rock. The cliffs on either side are great photo opportunities and we took full advantage of them. We were left with enough time that Lisa did a little shopping. Frederic had told us not to bother comparison shopping here as all the souvenir shops here were owned by the same person and that the prices in one place would be identical to the prices in another, something that Lisa checked on anyway and found to be true. I killed my time by wandering what few sidestreets there were and was disappointed to find they all offered nothing special at all. Dejected, I spent my last few moments snapping pictures of the lone guard goosestepping before the palace door no one seemed particularly interested in entering, despite the raised palace flag’s indication that the Prince was home.
We made our way past the Bougainvillea, unfortunately avoiding the Jardin Exotique because Lisa had had enough of steps for the entire vacation, and sat in the shade by the Cousteau Aquarium while we waited for everyone to return. Frederic wasn’t taking us down to the garage using the elevators. Instead, we were walking, because there were still more views to be had. It was worth the extra walk (and the plentiful stairs) because we were able to see the backside of the Cousteau Aquarium. It’s not readily apparent from the front, but the Cousteau Aquarium is built into a cliff overhanging the Mediterranean, and the steps we descended offered us a beautiful view of the rich blue and emerald green waters crashing against the cliff’s face, swirling in pools in the eroded rock, a waterfall whose origin I’m unsure of cascading down the rock and into the sea. The view was so beautiful that Frederic had to assign some of the younger members of the tour as cattle herders, running back up the steps to get the stragglers taking pictures through the small windows that offered the amazing view.
The bus took us to yet another underground garage, this time beneath the casino and hotels. We made our way down long hallways to the outside and then up ornate staircases whose designs were overlooked because we were walking up them and not down. We passed the casino, its statuary and wrought iron being temporarily ignored on the way to our final destination before our final spate of free time: Le Café de Paris. Earlier in the day, Frederic asked us all whether we would like ice cream or a cold beverage here and most of us chose ice cream after a bit of hesitation, wondering how thirsty we’d be after the day’s sightseeing. The answer was not very, since there wasn’t all that much strenuous walking and we had just come from lunch a short time ago, but it was all for naught anyway, since anyone who got ice cream also got water. The ice cream wasn’t quite ice cream, but it also wasn’t gelato, so I don’t know what to call it. I’d like to say it was sorbet, and it probably was, but whatever it was, it was delicious: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, topped with whipped cream. All the flavors felt not like artificial approximations, but the rich, natural flavors, unfolding on our rapidly freezing tongues. After we had finished our ice cream and had lingered enough in the misting fans, we were set loose in Monte Carlo.
This was the second biggest disappointment of the tour.
You can’t go anywhere in Monte Carlo. The casino has two barriers to entry: there’s an admission fee to the casino (pay to lose money? I though I was doing that by gambling!) and you have to check your camera (which I didn’t want to). The posh hotel across the way didn’t allow anyone in who wasn’t a guest. The other, not-as-grand casinos don’t have the same admission fees, but they still won’t let you in with a camera. We were left to wander the streets, not having the interest or the funds to go into the designer label shops that lined the surrounding area. A Disney Cruise Line photographer was there to take our picture in front of the casino we couldn’t enter, and after that we just sat in the garden until it was time to leave. As mentioned above when I talked about Nice, watching the rich and the people pretending to be richer than they are is probably the least interesting thing in the world to me (which makes a lot of the screwball comedies far harder to watch than they should be). I don’t begrudge anyone their money, but I don’t have it and thus I don’t see why I should care. Thus, Monte Carlo was pretty much a bore.
We made our way back to the bus and back to Villefranche. We wouldn’t be leaving port until around 11:30 pm, mainly to accommodate the people who wanted to pretend they were rich in Monte Carlo. Frederic noted our wealth of time in Villefranche and made a few suggestions as to sights to see before returning to the boat. He mentioned the rue Obscura, a road hidden from view from the harbor, allowing residents to maintain active lives while giving the town an outward appearance of abandonment to anyone looking to pillage from the sea. We wandered around town looking for it, finally finding an old sign pointing down a set of poorly lit stairs that we felt would be the last thing we saw before our murders. The rue Obscura is exactly what you’d imagine a dark, enclosed alleyway built in Medieval times to hide from invaders would look like, and we were more than happy to get out of it as quickly as possible.
We wandered up and down the street facing the sea, Lisa begging to eat in one of the many restaurants lining it, me arguing that we still had Disneyland Paris ahead and we’d already almost tapped out our finances. As we went back and forth, each of us knowing that the other one had a really good point but not wanting to concede, we bumped into none other than our tablemates, Andy and Laura, who were running back to the ship to make their Palo reservation. They had done the day on their own and had even managed to see Eze, which they loved, which made us briefly consider pushing them off into the rocky surf beneath us before we thought it better to just be happy that someone had gotten to enjoy it.
In the end, I won out, a hollow victory as I would’ve probably enjoyed a nice French meal more than Lisa did. We tendered back to the ship, Lisa below deck, me above, taking the requisite seven thousand pictures of the port and the Magic. Laurel had finished our room early again, and a Peacock awaited us on our bed, along with the 8 millionth DVC advertisement. These people were nothing if not persistent.
Dinner was actually one of the best yet, as it was Lobster night and the feeling was right. I had the Smoked Salmon Parcel with Baby Spinach and three, count ‘em three main courses: the Baked Lobster Tail (which Melroy cracked for me and then drenched in butter, that handsome devil), the Oven Roasted Veal with Madeira Sauce, and the Grilled Venison in Stilton and Red Currant Jus. Lisa had the Lobster and the Veal, accompanied with a French Onion soup that she enjoyed thoroughly and I intended to order but forgot, thankfully, since it was too strong for me to like it anyway. Wilson brought out Blue Cheese and Asparagus Risotto as a side and it was so good I made Lisa order her own. Aren’t I a catch? I didn’t take a picture of the desserts, but I know I had Peach Melba, among, probably, several other things. I ate all this while dressed in my tux, for even though it was semi-formal night, the previous semi-formal night was interpreted by everyone but myself as really-formal night. I wasn’t caught off-guard this time.
This was it, the final port of the cruise, and the sadness was tempered by the elation we both felt over how wonderful the entire trip had been. Still, we couldn’t help but talk about how disappointed we were in the final excursion: the way-to-touristy-and-not-too-interesting Nice, the who-cares-haughtiness of Monaco, and the complete lack of Eze. We got some great photos, and Frederic was so funny that he was probably the best tour guide of the trip, but I wish we had chosen differently for our final tour, or maybe Disney had chosen differently for their final port.
