The Richards Family

Yesterday morning we woke the kids up early to head off to Monaco and Monte
Carlo. We were attempting to drive into a town called Cagnes-sur-Mer, where it was recommended we hop on a train and go into Monaco that way. Well, the 20 minute drive to the station ended up taking an hour, and then, they were doing all this construction around the train station so there was no parking at all, so we decided to drive on the A-8 into Monaco. That actually worked out fine and there was plenty of parking available in the parking lot right by the famous casino, Monte Carlo. We arrived there by 11 am (after having left the house at 9), parked, took some photos by the casino, wandered down past the harbor where all the very luxurious yachts were parked (my dad would have enjoyed wandering about here) and then followed our Rick Steve’s guidebook to a wonderful little restaurant called, ‘Huit et Demi’ and sat down to a very tasty lunch. We sat outside underneath some big white umbrellas and ate pizza, pasta and I had this very deilicious white fish called Lieu that was roasted with courgettes (zucchini) potatoes and an incredible light/creamy sauce. After lunch we wandered about in Monaco and then drove to the beach in Antibes. We’d brought beach stuff with us in the car so did a quick change and then sat ourselves down on the sand. The beach was fairly crowded, but not too bad and we had fun playing in the water, swimming about, reading and Nate and I bought a paddle ball set at a shop nearby and we all took turns playing. At about 6:30 we packed up and hopped in the car. There must have been some really bad accident, or something, on the A – 8 which was our primary route home, so we headed off of that on to some side roads and eventually arrived home quite a bit later. We laughed alot in the car while we were stuck in traffic about all kinds of things. Dave had gone out shopping in the morning so once we got home we cooked up some dinner and sat outside at the leisurely european dining time of 9:45 pm. Monaco was fun to see with the kids and they all enjoyed being at the beach in the late afternoon. The kids enjoy listening to and hearing the variety of languages being spoken around them when they are at the beach, and people watching. I ordered some really great french fries from the food stand at the beach; I’m not sure that they were all that delicious or if it was because we were munching on them, while on the beach, in France, that made them more yummy anyway, it was a good snack to have as dinner was a little later that evening. Today we are hanging out at the house and Dave and I may go in to the Renoir museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer. It’s a beautiful sunny morning with temperatures supposedly heading in to the low 80′s.