Monaco: small but mighty

Monacoooo! As I mentioned in my post about Nice, Monaco is a principality of France, just about an hour away from Nice. What's a principality, you ask? ...I'm not completely sure. But, I know that Monaco is technically still a part of France - they all speak French, etc. But, they also have a king and queen. Kinda weird. This tiny port village is incredible, though. Every single part of it is absolutely stunning. It helped, too, that the weather was perfect and sunny and warm while we were there (my hint that I could go to the beach the next day!). In a nutshell, Monaco is home to some super snazzy wealthy people, a lot of tourists (I guess not really home to them, by definition...), and people that work in the tourist shops (not sure if they fit into the prior categories). Oh, and Monte Carlo casino (who knew that was a real thing?! I mean... yeah, I totally knew that that was somewhere in the world). Oh, and a really important tennis tournament had just happened there. And a car race in May. The Grand Prix! That's what it's called. So.. those things.

We were in Monaco for a few hours of the afternoon/early evening, and walked around the whole time staring with our jaws wide open. Without further ado, photos!

on the bus on the way there

 

We found a church! I'm pretty sure there's only room for this one tiny church/chapel in the whole town. One way we can tell for sure that this isn't really France. Not enough churches.

 And then we kept walking and found GELATO! Little did I know that my life would be changed in a few weeks with the discovery of real Italian gelato, but this was the mango-ey-est mango ice cream I've ever had. Did I mention that Monaco is right next door to Italy? That has its perks. Or just this one.

 More beautiful views

 And then, Monte Carlo!

from the side

feeding my lamp obsession. found behind Monte Carlo Casino

aaand the back of it. haven't even gotten to the front yet.

there it is! 

Onto more views. The mountains in the distance (to the left/middle of the photo) are Italy.

situated right on the ocean and in the mountains

an adorable sidestreet.
every. single. thing. was gorgeous

The Prince's Palace! Or the King's... or both.

walking through a park. <3

the church where Grace Kelly is buried. woah.
also, I lied. there's room for two churches.

aaaand Grace Kelly's tomb.

sneak peek inside the church.
there was a group of obnoxious teenagers inside
so i didn't have much patience for pictures.. but it was big. and cool.

I'll end with some flowers. Because there haven't been a lot of those in Europe while I've been here, so the signs of spring made me SO HAPPY. :) 

 

And one last view of the port.

As you can see, this town is magnificent. That about covers the time I spent there. The pictures don't really do it justice, though. I'm super glad that we went to Monaco. I'm happy that it's something I got to see while I was so close to it, so it made sense. However, I don't think that it's a place where I would really like to spend a large quantity of time. There was so much money everyyywhereee, and if I had been around longer, it would have gotten in my head and I'd start thinking about the plethora of other things that that money could be used for. Like, feeding people, for example. That aside, though, it's a pretty cool place. A lovely, colorful, touristy, rich place. :) I was pleased with our afternoon there!