Monaco, the tiny land of fast cars, flashy royals, and obscene wealth.  Obviously, the top destination spot for travelers with oversized backpacks and not much else to their name.   Yea…we didn’t think so either.   But we decided not to let the less desirable luggage stop us from a detour on our way to Paris!  We knew we had to have one night in this luxurious spot to see what all the fuss was about…but when our schedules lined up so we were there during the annual yacht show, we actually got a lot more glam than even we bargained for!

We trudged off the train and went down down down the stairs–the station was basically blasted inside the mountain side and we had to make our way out to the coast before we could get our bearings and some GPS signal.  As we rounded the corner, the mega yachts glistened along the shore, waiting for their owners to appear and use the 10 person hot tub on deck or one of the 3 levels of sun loungers and couches.  We were already getting a few looks from the passengers of the Ferraris and Audi R8’s zooming by along the bend…oh how I wanted to get into a hotel and ditch this luggage smudged with Sahara dirt!

The desk clerk kept an unreadable face as we plopped our luggage in front of reception to check in.   She didn’t even flinch when we requested one hour laundry and pressing for my husband’s (only) button down.   Dinner reservations were at 8, a jacket was required, and the Moroccan desert’s vivid sand had colored it beyond my repair, even after 2 rounds in the sketchy Italian washing machine!  Unfortunately, to meet that deadline, we had to unpack his ENTIRE backpack in the middle of their lobby to hand over the shirt right that instant…yup, we were the guests they had always dreaded for sure.

We had a few hours to kill before we could “glam up” for our casino dinner, so we went for a walk.   The winding roads and sharp hills were beautiful and had my husband lusting for the chance to drive…something I had already looking into and unfortunately the “driving experiences” in this country were just a tease…they would pick you up in Monaco but instead of letting you try out the famous hairpin turns, they drove you across the border to France before you got behind the wheel of the Ferrari or other super car.

Instead we walked down to the beach and sat eating ice cream (which is a total let down after a week of constant gelato sadly…) and feasting our eyes on elderly Europeans in speedos…Exactly what I expected on the French Riviera honestly. (And I’ll save you any pictures of this particular sight, you’re welcome.)

When it was time for dinner, we took the (still a little orange…) shirt back from a confused housekeeper and hoped that our struggles to look presentable paid off…and as we stepped into the casino lobby surrounded by women in full length gowns and men in white tuxedos, we just shrugged and laughed–the sad realization of backpacking life was that this fancy night out was probably one of our only ones for the next 3 months.

We got inside with just enough time for a little blackjack before dinner.  We love going to Vegas and although I tend to scope out the $5 a hand tables, we were prepared for the stakes to be a little higher here.   What we didn’t expect was for the world famous Monte Carlo Casino to only have 3 tables…total.   Yup, 2 blackjack tables and 1 roulette was the entire room of the live casino action.  It was also the most eerily quiet casino I had ever entered.   There was an entire adjacent room of slot machines, but not a single chime or song came out of those…and not a single player was yelling with joy, but that’s possibly just that no one was winning!  We laid out €100 and figured we could kill an hour here…and then checked the minimum table bet.   Nope, we had 4 hands possible, so we were hoping for a good deal.

Bust.

Bust.

Dealer 21.

Things weren’t looking so hot.  Maybe we could just have a drink before dinner instead to save ourselves the embarrassment?

Thankfully, the next couple rounds went back in our favor and we got back to even.  (Ed. note:  Gotta know when to walk away). We decided that might be the best we could hope for and walked away from blackjack…but no casino trip would be complete without my husbands roulette tradition.  Whenever we are in Vegas, he has to drop some money on Red as we pass a spinning roulette wheel.   It used to be $100 I think just because he felt that made him sound very James Bond.  [Ed. note: hmph.]  Thankfully, in the most 007 casino we had found, he realized the odds weren’t in our favor and instead just dropped one of those €25 chips down…and we won!   It was definitely time to call it a night here because we never expected to say we actually won money at the Monte Carlo Casino and didn’t want to push our luck!