For example, at the Hotel de Paris next to the casino where the Monte Carlo Grand Prix track concludes (something I drove on today), you can eat a simple meal of caviar for 70 Euros. An entree will cost you 125 Euros. Obviously the kind of people who go there can afford it, as their Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris are all lined up outside the front door of the hotel. This city makes a luxury car such as an Aston Martin look tame. If you have money and want to get attention in Monaco, don't come with less than a Ferrari. If you really want to get attention, you can just go to the Ferrari dealership up the street and buy that new Ferrari motorcycle sitting in the display window. Or just throw a party on your larger-than-life yacht in the harbor. Or just throw money around in the casino, where the doorman only lets in certain people and certain cars get into the parking lot. Anything less than a Range Rover? Forget it.
Or you can do what Danny and I did, and we didn't need a $200,000 supercar. Thanks to Rocky the bull terrier and the Go-Pro camera on his back, we got plenty of attention; at one point there were several people (including an Asian man with gray-to-black teeth) surrounding us taking pictures of Rocky, who just sat there and smiled. I was able to get a truly excellent picture of that situation, and it's something that deserves to be published; it tells a story by itself. But really, you don't need to throw money around to get attention.
But Monaco is a gorgeous city crammed into a tiny space along the Mediterranean Ocean. I was more interested hiking to the top of the hill above the city, because in all honesty the material richness of this area gets old quickly. It's fake to me. I also found it amazing that I was becoming numb to how many luxury and supercars there were.
"Oh, another Ferrari. So? Everyone has a Ferrari here."
"A Lamborghini? That's nice, especially the gold one."
"I've seen more Audi R8s today than I've seen in my entire life."
Monaco is one of those countries I never expected to visit. If I go again, it'll be on a motorcycle because that whole place is like a parking lot. There are way too many cars there. But I'm so glad I went. That makes seven countries in nine days, not including England, in which I've driven during this trip.
From Monaco we drove through Nice (where we slept last night) and stopped in Cannes. The south of France is so glamorous and beautiful; it's too bad we couldn't have had more time there. Then again, we wouldn't be able to afford it! From Cannes we drove more than 300 miles, went through the excellent-looking city of Lyon and stopped in Dijon for the night. We are quickly seeing how France is the most expensive country to drive in that we've been through. Every 50 miles or so on the highway there's a random toll booth, and it's become an exasperation between the two of us. And we just keep laughing at the memory of me being extorted of 78 Euros in Genoa.
And French drivers don't tailgate you like Italians do. What they will do is pass you in the fast lane and then immediately merge into your lane, almost cutting you off even though there are no other cars around and plenty of space. It's happened several times to us today.
19/4 - From Dijon, we drove the 400-plus miles back to the ferry in Calais and eventually back to Bournemouth. Though the day was mostly driving, it wasn't without hilarious moments. Rocky developed the habit of climbing between the front seats and settling in the lap of whoever was sitting shotgun and dozing off to sleep. We payed more tolls, of course, and we learned to not get stressed out at toll booths; if they want that much money from us, they can come out and meet us. Today we payed more than 50 Euros in tolls again, each.
The drive itself was so relaxing and the polar opposite of Italy. The entire day was spent speeding on smooth and flat motorways through fields of green grass, entire patches of what looked like yellow flowers and clusters of wind turbines. At points it was so perfect a stock Microsoft Windows background wouldn't have looked any better.
We thought we passed through our final toll about 20 miles outside of Calais. But then Danny got flagged down by a motorcycle traffic officer and was pulled over for speeding about 10 miles away from the coast. They clocked him at 164 km/h, which is over 100 mph. They weren't wrong. But this stop was the hilarious cherry on top of the whole damn cake because this couldn't have been more different compared to a traffic stop in America. In the states, the fact you might get shot by a trigger-happy cop is constantly in the back of your mind. During this stop, the officer told us how fast we were going, asked for Danny's passport and informed us the fine was 90 Euros in cash. This was very odd. In fact, I noticed every other car stopped in this area by the police also had British license plates, so there was something very fishy about it. Since we didn't have cash, he kept Danny's passport and told us to drive into the nearest small village and get money out of a cash point.
I told Danny I'd pay for half of the fine since I had been speeding too, at some points going over 100 mph as well. So we get back to the traffic stop and actually walk up to the officer on foot. In America we'd get screamed at and/or tasered and/or shot. This guy was really friendly though the motorcycle cop spent the whole time looking back at us from his bike, probably because I was (trying to be inconspicuous) taking pictures of Danny and the cop. The following picture is one of the best we got all trip long; he's just smiling at the situation. He asked the cop if the money would be used for good purpose. I chimed in with asking if it would be used to help light the motorway at night (it's pitch black and very difficult to see). I don't think he heard me. So Danny gave the cop an old address of his (where he doesn't live anymore) and we were on our way.
And of course, we had to pay a bloody toll to get back onto the motorway. Those French bastards!
I didn't think I'd ever be disappointed to come back home from a long trip, but I'm a little sad to be back in England, which is a very strange thing to think. The motorways are much slower. In France and Italy, the average driving speed is perhaps between 75-80 mph on the roads with drivers going 90 mph not uncommon, and that wasn't just us. In England I'd say it's 10 mph slower.
On the ferry back to Dover, the sun set on the English horizon. I watched that flaming yellow-orange ball disappear over the sky line, leaving reddish-orange and pink colors along the horizon along with the light blue of the sky and wispy, small clouds. It was the perfect ending to this trip and is just the analogy this story needed. After more than a week of driving through fields, hills, mountains, congested cities, places we never imagined ourselves visiting and environments in which we can all see ourselves, the sun has set on this adventure. I take away from it fantastic memories and essentially no regrets. Sure we had a very bad experience with the traffic in Italy, but we still had a blast. Every country was special in its own way.
Here are some final stats for you: We drove about 2,400 miles in eight days. Including England, the country in which we started and ended, we visited eight nations, five of which were new to me. We ate a waffle in Belgium, almost got into a dog fight in Luxembourg, had a coffee in Germany, camped under a waterfall in the Oberland region of Switzerland, felt shock, awe and rage in Italy, saw how the other side lives in Monaco and got a speeding ticket in France. There's not much to complain about here.
But I don't want to look at my bank account.
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