We set off from St. Dalmas de Tende feeling refreshed, if a little bitten and drained of blood in my case. You will be pleased to know that I am certain that it was the Mozzies who were responsible and not an attack by Vampires. Mind you I’m basing this on the fact that my evening meal had been steeped in garlic so I don’t think that I am a member of the undead. I promise to let you know if I develop an aversion to sunlight!

As we headed towards Monaco we rode yet another interesting but well surfaced road, that was rarely either straight or level, through some dramatic countryside in great weather. Is it any wonder that we were both grinning and having a wonderful time?

Neither of us has ever been to Monaco, the tiny little principality made famous in films and car races as being the playground of the rich and famous. I have never quite understood the difference between Monte Carlo and Monaco, so when we next had internet access we Googled it – answer here for those of you that are interested.

We were looking forward to the experience (Sarah had been banging on about it for a while!), but didn’t quite know what to expect. So it came as a surprise as we rode around a bend to be presented with an amazing view of Monaco spread out below us.

We pulled off quickly into a layby on the side of the road, placed there for exactly that purpose judging by the number of folk that came after us and did exactly the same thing! I suspect this could be one of Monaco’s most photographed spots.

I don’t think that I have ever seen so much money floating on the sea before. Yachts, power boats, ocean cruisers, a three masted tall ship, all bobbing around on a calm, stunningly bright blue sea.

We headed for the sea front which was not very far away horizontally but was an awfully long way below us. This entailed quite a ride down the heavily conurbated and very steep hillside that Monaco is built on, including another first, an exit off a roundabout into a sharp downhill hairpin bend in heavy traffic! Thank heavens for all the mountain riding experience we’d had up till then!

We negotiated our way past the Monte Carlo Casino and down to the harbour side, whilst dodging kamikaze well dressed folk on scooters and in chauffeur driven limos, ending up shoe-horned into a sort of space by the side of a church, which was the closest we could find to a parking space. There were cars, bikes and scooters jammed into just about everywhere they could be, this small car park also had a number of the afore-mentioned limos triple parked with their chauffeurs standing around, chatting and smoking whilst presumably waiting for the calls to pick up their respective obviously well-heeled clients.

What a place!

Hot, sunny, manic, oozing style and money from every well dressed pore… We had a very small mooch about and a wide-eyed look at what we could see from where we were before deciding to forget the expensive coffee and head out of town – we’d seen enough to get an inkling of what the place was like, and were absolutely melting in our bike gear. I now understand why almost every other rider was wearing normal and therefore cool clothes.

We set off only to encounter yet another first, negotiating an underground roundabout with several tunnel exits to choose from. In the heavy traffic we were not quite sure which exit to take… Mip doesn’t work well underground and it was really not clear. Picking one almost at random, we ended up going through a series of tunnels which then spat us out right by the opposite side of the port.

Slightly bemused, we spotted a car park by the marina and pulled in for a breather and to gather our wits. It turned out we were in the car park of Stars’n’Bars, with a covered outside terrace right by the marina. Ah-ha – somewhere we could actually get that expensive coffee whilst being able to keep an eye on the bikes and all our gear – perfect!

Outside the bar they were displaying, and presumably taking orders for, a Greman electrically assisted pedal cycle that was almost a motorcycle. Interesting and very green but rather expensive, costing as much as a medium sized real motorcycle.

After perusing the surprisingly reasonably priced menu we decided to go all out and have lunch rather than just coffee, and massively enjoyed the people watching, not to mention overhearing bits of the many and varied conversations that were going on at the tables around us. It turned out that we were there on the first day of the Monaco Boat Show, and one was a chap discussing the customs requirements for his armed bodyguards and specifically for their guns and ammunition to get into the Seychelles.

It was a great taste of how the other half live!