Monaco and Eze

Our last excursion day was to Monaco and I had booked another tour through Disney for the whole day.  After our tour in Naples we actually tried to cancel our tour in Monaco so we could do our own thing but it was too late to cancel so we just went along with it.  There were some moments that were tough to go with the flow when our little group had our own, sometimes slower pace, sometimes faster paced flow, but overall it was a really nice day.  

We ate some breakfast, stuffed our bags with cereal and bananas for later, and met our tour group in the theater.  We took tender ships to the shore.  I can definitely see why people fall in love with the French Riviera.  It's whole new kind of gorgeous.  Clear blue water, beautiful buildings carved into mountainsides, everything is clean and the food is delicious.  What's not to love?

Our first stop was the cathedral in Monaco.  We jumped on a bus, had a little incident losing our tour group while getting all our babies strapped to us for the walk...and our tour group left us by the bus.  We met up with them a bit later and started walking up the hill to the cathedral.  Our tour guide told us the story of how the prince of Monaco met Grace Kelly and how they fell in love and she became the princess of Monaco.  An interesting parallel to Princess Diana except that Grace Kelly was a celebrity in her own right already, and the royalty loved her as much as the people did.  Everywhere we went in Monaco there were tributes to her.  Paintings, sculptures, it was beautiful how much she was adored and how much everyone seemed to be drawn to her and owed her some debt of gratitude for bringing even more fame and attention to their tiny country.  She was married in that cathedral and we saw her burial place there as well, adorned with a beautiful portrait and fresh white flowers.  Such a cool story. 

After the cathedral we walked up to the Prince's Palace.  There is no king of monaco, only a prince as it's not a kingdom, it's a principality.  There was a long explanation as to why, but I remember very little about that as I was trying to listen to the guide in my headset while entertaining lots of little ones.  The palace was beautiful and not too big.  While we were waiting in line outside Mal was having a conversation with Finn and asked him, "If you met the prince, what would you say to him?"  Finn's response was, "I would say, 'Do you have any snacks in this palace?'  Maybe he would share one with me."

After our short tour of the palace we had some time to explore and find some lunch before meeting back up with our tour guide.  The boys climbed on some cannons,

chased some pidgeons of course,

and we found a cute little restaurant to sit down in for a while.

Seriously, this view?!

There was just enough time for a teensy break on a little playground by the palace before our time was up and we had to meet back up with our tour guide.

We got back in the bus and took another quick bus ride to Monte Carlo where we walked a bit along the famous raceway and saw the famous hairpin turn.  Then we finished our little tour in Monte Carlo in front of the casino.  It was hot and all the kiddos were very ready for some down time so we cut out of the rest of the chatting and found a beautiful little green space to run around and have some snacks.

And take a few pictures of the babes in some clover.

We met back up with the tour group at the bus and headed to our last stop for the day, the village of Eze.  We were pretty beat by the end of our day and the end of our busy week too.  I was especially tempted to call it quits and the thought of hiking up stairs in this cliffside village was not super appealing.  But, once again, we just asked when to meet back at the bus and decided to make our own way and it was the best part of our day by far.  I wish I'd taken more pictures of the village as we drove in and drove away.  It was so picturesque.  A tiny little village climbing up the side of this outcrop of rock.
The girls were so sweet and dreamy.

The boys loved climbing around on all the stone stairs.

Again, I wanted to take pictures of everything.  Every door, window, tiny side street was just gorgeous.

We'd push the stroller a little ways, then carry it up some steps.  Stop and step into a little shop for a minute and then keep exploring.  The boys found some places to hang out.

But even they seemed invigorated by the charm, shade, and ease of this little place.

Finn called this "blastoff"  which meant counting down and jumping over and over and over off this little ledge.

We stopped at this little, ancient church at the top of the village and decided to change diapers.  That's when we discovered the second pooplosion of the day.

Taryn mildly pooped through her outfit earlier in the day but this outfit of Kenna's we just ended up throwing away.  There was no amount of rinsing in our cruise ship room sink that would make that go away.

Even though the first part of the day was kind of hard.  Keeping up with a tour group, trying to stay upbeat for the kids and be patient when they were so hot and tired was kind of rough.  But I don't think we ever would have stopped at Eze on our own and I'm so glad we did.  It was truly the stuff of dreams.  Enormous chess sets on tiny green lawns looking over the sea, terrace restaurants with bright umbrellas, a little market where we bought the boys some candy, cobblestone streets and wavy glass windows.  It was so gorgeous. I'm so glad we didn't miss it!