3/9–Monaco afternoon

So, we were lucky enough to be in time for the changing of the palace guards.  Certainly not as majestic as the Buckingham Palace event, but way more close up – that’s for sure.  We managed to elbow our way up to the iron stanchions that held the crowds back from the “parade” route and waited for the show.  At precisely 11:55, here come the guards….

At the stroke of noon – the guards begin to change…

….then back they come….

Lovely!  Now we are off to walk down the hill into the new town.  The ramp down is great, slowly sloping, and wrapping around the Palace grounds and fortress walls.

It takes maybe 10 minutes to walk down, good exercise and easy – but we sure wouldn’t want to walk up – no way!  The ramp dumps us off into Place d’Armes where there is supposed to be a daily market.  And there is…but it is mostly flowers and very disappointing.  A market building has only little cafes – and as this is one of the most expensive cities in the world – we’re not in the market (no pun intended) for outside food.

So, we head back to the ship, wandering through some cute little narrow streets and finally ending up on the promenade alongside the yacht harbor.  It’s another easy, albeit long, walk back to the ship where we hit the buffet for our traditional chef’s salad lunch.  Perfect.

A little bit later, we go outside again for our afternoon exercise and just walk the sea wall in the warm sunshine.  There’s a great view of the Oceanographic Museum building, rising up from sea level and of course the city walls/fortress.

Back on the ship, we watch a movie in the cabin then watch the sailaway from the balcony.  Beautiful day!