Monaco

Hola!

As this is Monaco race week, I thought it would be the perfect time to post about my adventures there. Especially that Monaco is such a special, historic racing place and I even chose it to be the header of this blog.

The planning of the trip started with me realizing that Monaco doesn't have an airport, which lead me to the second realization: it is right next to Nice, where Wizzair DOES FLY (Wizzair is kind of my go-to airline these days (and unfortunately no, I don't get paid for advertising them.)

So next up was convincing a friend to join me (I am completely fine solo travelling but for this I felt, I would love some company). This mission was completed pretty easily, as I'm not sure people know how to say no to the French riviera.

Anyway, here are the things that we checked out in Monaco:

1) The track

I mean this is kind of a given. And because there was a race coming up next weekend they were building grand stands, so it was pretty cool. Unfortunately, we walked into the wrong direction, which was completely my fault, as after Baku, my brain just assumed that this one is also going anti-clockwise, which is not the case. Either way, we went through tunnel, walked by the casino (and by "walking by" I mean, we went in, gambled a bit, and I won 3,1 euro!! :D), the Fangio statue and of course the Fairmont hairpin.

This last one was honestly my favorite. Such an iconic place, but for a reason!! I was not the only one, just sitting there and watching the cars. And because it is Monaco, literally every 1-2 minutes some really nice (and very expensive) car would show up, so it really is a spectacle. It really is a place that's giving carhappy vibes. (I would put pictures of it, but I'm sure you've seen it a million times, and also my picures all turned out not so good, so here is this one:)

2) The Prince's car collection 

I don't know what to tell you, I would love to have a car collection like that. And you know what? I will have one - but mine will be out of lego cars, as I'm not the princess of anything. But for real, it is a lot of pretty cars with history, and the ratio of F1 cars is also relatively high! (My problem was that for the F1 cars, the little descriptions didn't really give a lot of background and I really missed that. Based on driver numbers you can at least google the drivers, but why do I have to do that in a museum??) 

All in all, I had fun there. Actually, the ticket was my birthday gift from my friend and as far as birthday gifts go, this one was a great pick! :D

 

 

3) Motors Corner

This is an odd one out, because this is in Nice not in Monaco, but as you cannot really get to Monaco without visiting Nice, I think this can be mentioned here as well. It is basically a workshop, where they fix up and sell classic cars, and you can just go in and look around. The place is so packed with cars that sometimes it's a bit difficult to move around, but I think it just talks about the parking skills of the people working there! :D 

The mechanics who work there were also very nice, even photobombed my pictures, so no need to be afraid to ask if you can check the place out. I'm just saying this, because I had a complete impostor syndrome attack before going there (like you know, I'm a girl, I know nothing about cars, I also look like someone who doesn't know anything about cars), but thankfully I got over it, because damn, I'm not gonna feel bad about something that brings me joy, even if I'm just an enthusiast.

4) Everything else

"Everything else" is really just everything that I cannot put under any other label. Like this shop called Boutique Formule 1, where they mostly focus on Ferrari, but they also sell a lot of vintage merch, and also at a quite okay price. Though, it is an advantage if you're a bit bigger size than me...:D 

There is a Ferrari service there as well, which was a surprise to me but also not so much. :D I guess Monaco has such a high number of Ferraris that it makes sense to have a service dedicated to them. Anyway, it is just nice to walk by it and look at the pretty cars.

And of course, going up the hill and having a look at the view of everything from above is highly recommended. That is when you can take pictures like the header I have.