Monte Carlo; Sunday, 11 November, 2018

After checking out of the hotel I headed down to the station and picked up the bus out (and up) to the exotic gardens and observatory cave, at one of the highest points of the principality. I had a wander down through the gardens in a grey misty drizzle down to the observatory cave, located at the bottom of the gardens, but still over 100m above sea level.

Entrance to the gardens include a guided tour of the caves, which leave every hour and by the time I got down the hill to the cave I only had a couple of minutes to wait until the next tour started. The tour was conducted only in French, but that didn’t really matter as the caves themselves were more than impressive enough to make the commentary irrelevant. Filled with stalactites and stalagmites, as well as lots of examples of where they have met to become columns, the cave system was very impressive.

Despite all the stalagmites and stalactites, the cave was also quite a bit dryer than it had been outside, which made a nice change. However, by the time I’d completed the tour the weather had cleared up considerably and it was a bright blue sky and sunlight that greeted me as we emerged back into the sunlight, after the 300-step climb up from the bottom of the cave system.

I had a long wander back up the exotic gardens taking in the various types of cacti and succulents that happily grow on the cliffs that mostly make up Monaco. Back up at the top of the gardens I had a quick pit stop in the café before heading over to the bus stop to catch the bus that conveniently started at the gardens and ended in Monaco-Ville.

Over in the old town I picked up the land-train tour of Monte Carlo and Monaco-Ville. The tour itself took in much of the same route that the open-top bus had done, but with a different commentary there was more to learn.

The tour dropped my off at the Oceanographic museum, which turned out to be a very interesting museum and aquarium. The upper part of the building houses a museum that looks at the history of the study of the oceans, as well as mans impact on them, along with a small natural history collection of marine and related animals.

The lower floors house a large aquarium with several large tanks and lots of smaller displays, including one tank that contained several hundred small clown fish – there’s no way you’d find Nemo in that lot.

From the Oceanographic museum I caught the bus down into town and out to the Japanese Gardens to have a look round them. I hadn’t intended on spending too long looking round, but another hefty shower passed through and I ended up sheltering in one of the pagodas for a good 30 minutes whilst I waited for it to pass.

By now it was starting to get late, so I headed back up through the railway station and lifts to the hotel to collect my luggage and then headed back to the train station to catch the train back along the coast to Nice and on out to the station near the airport.

Thankfully, by the time I got to Nice the rain had stopped, so I was able to make the 20-minute walk back over to the airport in the dry, arriving just as check-in was about to open for the Gatwick flight to complete my journey home.