Day 10 - Cassis / Monaco / Nice, France - June 20th

Today was my birthday. Ursula (our tour director) knew it was my birthday from my passport info, so everyone sang happy birthday to me on the bus this morning and I got many birthday wishes throughout the day from our group members. It was nice. Our first stop was at another coastal city in France called Cassis. It was our lunch stop as we drive to Nice. We stayed for about 1.5 hours. The bus let us off up above town and then we took a little city train into town. There was a flea market going on and it was fun to walk through. I bought myself a pretty silver bracelet and Megan bought us each a seashell key chain. We spent some time down on the beach with our shoes off and walking along the water line. We then took the train back to our bus and drove to Nice. Nice is another large city on the coast with a lot of traffic, but it wasn’t as crowded as Marseille. We had some time to freshen up and then we left for Monaco! I was really excited to spend the evening in Monaco and Monte Carlo. The first thing we did was go to the Palace. WE took some pictures and saw views of the principality. We then went to a restaurant for dinner. They served us a salad, chicken bruschetta and a yummy custard dessert. They put a candle in mine and all sang to me again. I thanked everyone for coming to my birthday party. After dinner we went to the area of Monte Carlo. We drove along the Grand Prix race track on our way there. We also saw several Ferrari’s Lamborghini’s, Maserati’s and other expensive fancy cars. Monaco has the highest percentage of millionaires in the world. We also went to the famous casinos in Monte Carlo. Megan and I just got a table and ordered some hot chocolate, and then we walked around the area and looked for a Monaco hat for Dave. We didn’t get back to our hotel until midnight. It was a wonderful evening.