Report from France

Dear Family Members

Well I thought I would take a trip to Monaco to see if I could find a rich widow for me to play Gigolo and help her spend her money. My plan was to watch for a lady with a dog in tow and make a fuss over the dog. It always works as I know at Arbutus Ridge I got to know all the dogs and dog owners that way. But alas, it was raining cats and dogs when I got there.  As a consequence, no one except a few hen-pecked guys whose wives said to take the dog out for a walk, in spite of the rain, were walking dogs. As an aside, the dog of choice in Monaco is a Bichon Frise or a West Highland Terrier. Anyway, my fool-proof plan was not to be. I'm still single and broke.

On Friday last, I took a train (great trains) to Nice and stayed at a newly renovated hotel (everything was ultra modern) close to the Nice station, too. That night, I lucked into a small but lovely dining room called the Angleterre. It reminded me of a dining room in Bristol, England that Irene and I visited some years past. A very appropriately dressed lady, whom I took as the owner, met me and gave me a table by the window where I could look out and at the same time and observes the other clients in the dining room. The first night I chose from the the à la carte menu and was not disappointed. The next night I chose from the table d'hôte menu where I had the choice of dishes from 18 or 30 euro. I chose the 18 euro one and wasn't disappointed. While in Monaco I had lunch at a small restaurant and wasn't disappointed there either. One thing that I noticed was that the restaurants are very loyal to the region that they are in as they only offer wines from their own region.

As I said before, it was raining in Monaco when I got there, and I discovered I had lost my umbrella. Fortunately, there was a shop within 100 metres where I could walk without getting too wet where I bought a replacement (One with the Clan Gunn Tartan). Since I couldn't find a rich widow, I decided to buy an all-day bus pass and tour Monaco that way. There are four bus routes there, all starting and ending at the train station. I rode every one and got off and on at various places to take a few photo shots. On one of my tours I saw a luxury yacht that was almost the size of one of the BC Ferries.

Monaco is built on a cliff so every thing has to be built into the cliff. Even the train
tracks into Monaco are tunnelled under the cliff or rather mountain. In fact the route from Cap D'Ail to Monaco is one continuous tunnel.  When one gets to Monaco you're underground and have to take an elevator to the station on surface. It's like in a mine, taking the skip up the shaft to surface.  I can't say enough about the stations in Montpellier, Marseille, Nice or Monaco. They sure put the Vancouver Railway Station to shame (for that matter, Toronto too).

Because everything is excavated into a cliff, it is necessary to employ plenty of ground support, where rock-bolts (rock-anchors to a civil engineer) screening and shotcrete. Being an old mining engineer, I was in my glory observing the methods of ground support utilized there in Monaco.

The streets are totally clean in Monaco and very well maintained. Because of the shortage of land, they build upward as there are many high rise buildings there. (All luxurious too.) There is a wee park (in a gulley) at the center of the town that caught my eye and I took a couple of pictures there. Oh by the way, the stores all seem to feature high-end goods. (Really lovely stores and lovely goods.)

When I got a back to Nice in the late afternoon, I walked around a bit there but not too far as it was raining. But the next day the rain had stopped for a while and I again resumed my exploration of Nice. Nice also has a good public transit system just like Montpellier.  Also, non aux crottes de chien (no dog shit) on the sidewalks. Nice must have some sort of an ordinance as all the dogs I saw were on a lease, where as in Montpellier dogs can run at large.

While on my little tour I passed a large church, it was the Basilique Notre Dame. When I went inside, mass had just started so I stayed and lit a candle for my "Lil Honey". I even took communion. Catholics don't go to confession anymore as the Confiteor said at the beginning of mass seems to be enough. The congregation in France sing the whole mass. The only time they stop is when they read the Lesson, the Gospel, the Creed and the Lords Prayer. Where in Canada, it is the practice to receive both bread and wine, in France the congregation doesn't get a taste of wine as the priest hordes it all to himself.

Oh, I finally figured out why one sees no parking meters here. There are little boxes where one buys a ticket to place on the car dash. We have the same here but the boxes are not little, they are big and they are more conspicuous.

Well that's enough of my ramblings,

Much Love to all my family

Dad or Dave or whatever.