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Monaco, a police state?

Monaco geographic and history

Visiting Monaco-the Palace-the Cathedral and princess Grace

The princedom is divided into several areas: the city Monaco on his rock, with palace, cathedral, gardens and museum. The “new city” La Condamine that connects it to the luxurious area of Monte-Carlo with hotels and casino.
Please, be clever and leave your car in one of the numerous parkings in town. Walk to the rock and its interesting sites or take the bus if the distance seems a little too far. Just be aware that buses connect you easily with places like the Jardin exotique or to the beaches. You can buy tickets for 4 or 8 trips, much cheaper than per one ticket. To access the rock and its different levels, Monaco did it well: you access   by escalators and elevators- it's astounding how many elevators there are in this city!-- to the old town. 
Let’s first climb the rock, 300 meters wide, moving forward 800 meters into the sea, along a large road “the rampe Major”, sometimes with stairs. Avoid at all costs the "Monte-Carlo Story": only for the fanatics of royal gossip and absolute uninteresting show of 30 min about the lives of princes of Monaco! Pass through the medieval entrance gates which were closed at night until 1863,  much to the annoyance of sociable Monegasques. Follow a few curves and you’re standing on the PLACE DU PALAIS. Architecturally this place is not very interesting but it is  dotted with old canons and a salmon-pink pale yellow palace, that  stood there and  was used to be the old palace, built in 1215 for the power hungry Grimaldis.  It was redesigned  by Princess Grace. Prince Rainier III himself treats state affairs and “quite numerous scandals” today in this palace at the highest “top secret level”. The view on the city and the ports is phenomenal. 
But let’s describe briefly the palace, Rainier's official winter residence. Three grey crenelled towers surround the building where a richly sculptured portal and old canons with their piles of bullets form the main entrance. Soldiers, dressed in coloured operetta uniforms stand guard and the changing of the guard happens every day at 11.45 in front of an incredible amount of tourists (especially in high season). I never grasped the interest of all this, but who am I? A small detail for those who are interested: the soldiers are dressed in black during the winter and white during the summer. The State Apartments are sumptuous recreations of palatial 17th and 18th century decor. 

Guard at Monaco palace

On your way to the musee oceanographique, you can stroll through the old quarter leading to the Cathedral, an area of labyrinths, covered passageways, tiny squares, fountains and tangerine -coloured passages. When  you’re on the rue Colonel Bellando de Castro, stop at no. 4 and look at the CATHEDRAL since you’re standing in front of it! Where the 12th century St.Nicolas church used to stand this pseudo neo-roman, clinical  edifice in white stone of La Turbie has risen in 1884. It dominated a rocky spur, like the figurehead of a boat. The church is nothing extraordinary, majestic and oppressive at the same time,  but it has, as soon as you enter, that atmosphere of a convivial living room, despite the presence of two important altarpieces by Louis Brea, “Retable de Saint-Nicolas” and “Pieta du Cure Teste”. But one particular spot is THE attraction of this cathedral: the tomb of Grace Kelly, always buried under an excess of flowers. Hundreds of tourists, freshly disembarked out of dozens of tourist buses stay in sincere emotion around the grave of Gracia Patrizia. By the way, the memory of princess Grace doesn’t give in Monaco any sign of cheap sentimentalism. But in the inner circle of power, funny things happen as soon as we would make some remark about her that doesn’t fit the official version and this is not only the case for the Kelly question…. To be a perfect Monaco princely family admirer and believer of official versions, it would be a shame to name the miscreant American journalist James Spada, who wrote already several years ago a world best-seller biography about Grace Kelly. It would me most wise to express our disdain about this scribe, it would have been better not to name him at all;-). Imagine, this vile wretch had the nerve, despite the heavy opposition of the princely family, to publish his book and tell us that Grace was already used to a lot of passionate love stories before marrying in pure catholic tradition with her dream-prince; and numerous other affairs that didn’t prejudice the Grimaldis in any way (only in the eyes of the short-sighted court). And if I want to be mean until the end, I would say that the statue, in the middle of a green lawn, surrounded by  a rose-garden of Fontvielle, of a crumpled looking princes Grace harms her more than the book of James Spada.
Let’s continue to our next stop: the wonderful, certainly most interesting site of Monaco: the MUSEE OCEANOGRAPHIQUE. But that’s for next article.

Bibliography:  

Mary Blume, "Cote d'Azur. Inventing the French Riviera" (Thames and Hudson, London 1982) Stephen Liegeard, "La Cote d'Azur (Ed.Serre, Nice 1988), Patrick Howarth, “When the Riviera was ours” (Century, London 1977), Michel de la Torre, Alpes-Maritimes 06 (ed.Nathan, later  Deslogis-Lacoste), Pemble.J., “The Mediterranean Passion” (ed.Oxford University Press 1988),”V.Van Hulst “The Rock at the sea”, (ed.Casterman 1998)  

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Visiting Monaco-the Musee Oceanographique

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