Monaco

We woke up yesterday morning and decided to go to Monaco. So we walked through the city for a few minutes and took the train and in about 20 minutes we were in Monaco.

What?

Yes, an 800 year old city-state is about 15 miles from here.

Which is handy if you quickly need a city-state.

Which we did, largely because their Christmas Market has a teddy bear theme. We are very pro teddy bear!  And let me tell you (which I guess is what you're doing by reading clerkmanifesto), Monaco did not let down the teddy bear lovers of the world. 

 

I don't much do the more documentary style of photography because I rarely know what I'll be writing about and have limited photo taking windows, but I do a little regret I didn't get more pictures like this, because I could have had hundreds! In between the food stands and shops and amusement park rides of the Monaco Christmas Market, they had little buildings one could look in and see full sized animated teddy bear scenes! Teddy bears baking in the patisserie, teddy bears lolling about in the library (with real books. I saw a nice old Gerald Durrell in there!), teddy bears getting ready to open all their presents. Not to mention teddy bear rides, teddy bears sitting in giant Christmas wreaths, and teddy bears up on all the buildings. It was darling.

Also, and there is always the risk of alienating my audience here with too many too glorious to be true tales (I think is why the Peter Mayles of the world complain so much, to level things out), but I must mention the vin chaud.

The vin chaud. Oh the vin chaud.

I like a vin chaud. And in the days of yore, when I celebrated the christmas markets of Minnesota, as I passed by everything else, I often managed to get a cup of vin chaud. It was good, expensive, but good. And having a nice souvenir mug of spiced hot wine in a warming tent is a good time if one can manage it. But in Monaco, among the teddy bears, the billion dollar yachts, and the old city up above on the clifftop, the vin chaud was unbelievable.

First, I'd like to point out that it came in flavors because, why not, there's more than one way to cook a wine. We had a glass of the traditional and one of the daily special. One was more ginger based, one more lemony. The vin chaud also came in sizes and was not very expensive. Our cups of normal sized vin chaud made us drunk! The large size would have left us drooling on the cobblestones. Is this a good thing?

I believe in choice.

It was the best Christmas Market ever! And I could tell you more about Monaco, The slightly odd quality of the street life, the sheer amount of Winter construction work going on, and our climb up to the beautiful old city, but, why bother. 

I think we've covered the important things here.