I Swear I Saw 007 Lurking Among The Palms

Monte Carlo, here I come.

Everyone loves a Chocolaterie. Let's be real.

Yachts, much?

Monaco is so georgeous

Monte Carlo is a place I've been hearing about as long as I can remember, but I never really knew what it was until Casino Royale came out in 2006. I didn't even realize it was associated with the french, much less a famous, ritzy very expensive place in southern France.

Yesterday our group traveled 2 1/2 hours to the small country of Monaco.

Yes, it is its own country, covering about 2.2 square kilometers. The average person can walk the entire width of the country in about 56 minutes, and it has a population of about 33,000, making it the most densely populated country in the word.
84% of the population is not French, and it is a popular destination for the rich, famous and fabulous to have their second or third homes.

What would that be like.

The entire town runs along the Mediterranean, and the crystal clear blue sea has waves that crash,white and foamy, along the jagged edges of black cliffs; there is no beach, just a huge harbor with shiny yachts.

Oh, the yachts. There were hundreds of them, that likely cost more than my parents' house. Possibly more than all my friends parents houses put together.

I would love to live on a yacht.

Just sail the 9 miles it would take to get to the border of Italy on days when I got restless from living my life of luxury, laying out in in the baking sun.

Yeah, right.

As Brit, Jill and I wandered the streets of Monaco, we couldn't help but notice how clean the streets were. It was like being at Disneyworld in the Epcot center's version of France.
The houses and apartments were pristinely kept, the windows all full of flowers and not a piece of trash in sight.

Occasionally, a car would zoom by us, and our eyes would widen as every car that passed us was a BMW or Mercedes. I have never seen so many gorgeous European cars in one place.

As the afternoon wore on, we walked the shoreline to the casino, which was what I was most anxious to see.

I am a huge James Bond fan.

Hot and sweaty (always), we hiked up a giant hill ( France is ALL about the hills), and there it was, in front of us, with it's seafoam green rooftop dome-like steeples, and it's ancient cathedral architecture, Monte Carlo.

Of course, we didn't get in very far. First of all there is a black tie dress code, and second of all one must be 21 to enter. Jill and Brit are 20.

The security in the grand lobby of the entrance make it very clear that tourists cannot go past a certain part of the brown and white speckled marble flooring.

The golden Phantom of The Opera status chandeliers hanging from the elevated celing made a 22 year old college girl feel very under-dressed in her jeans.

So we poked around a little, walked down the stairs, past two ferrari's, and into the streets, where Cartier and Chanel sat, waiting to be walked into and shopped at.

But clearly, not by us. Someday, though.

As we walked away from the casino, I looked back, glancing into one of the windows on the third floor. I couldn't see much, but I could see another golden hanging chandelier, and a few tables waiting to be set up for black jack or a little russian rulet that night, and I could only imagine the couture of ball gowns and tuxedo's that would be worn to the tables that night.