Danhauser Travel Blogs

  9/17/25 and 9/18/25– Our flight home doesn’t take off until 1pm, so we check out at 10am and walk across the street to the airport. Of course the sickness is hitting me now so this will be an interesting journey.  We drop off our bags at the counter, go through security and customs, and try to find seating in a crowded terminal near our gate. The only place seems to be close to the smoking section which keeps leaking the cigarette smell throughout. Who in their freaking mind would design something like this? I could never live here. Our plane boards on time and of course I am surrounded by a large group from Philly who are all yelling at each other from their seats to talk. I really hope this doesn’t last throughout the flight because my head can’t handle this. Sure enough, once we take off it quiets down as I settle in for sleep. Eight and a half hours later, we arrive to rain in Philadelphia and our first leg complete. We go through US customs, which is easy with the...

  9/16/25– This is our last full day of the trip before we fly home. Our check-out time is 10am and it’s time to lug our bags down the four flights of steps again. I am not looking forward to this at all, but at least the view is nice from our window. We take it slow down the steps, one bag at a time, and then see the cleaning lady already waiting for us on the dot. So when they say 10am they mean 10am. Got it. We make it to the train station, relax for a few moments before realizing the boards are not working that suppose to show what platform our train is on. We stroll over to the tracks and see several people waiting on one so we gamble that this will be our train, and at 10:20am it rolls in. We find an empty handicap compartment which helps with our luggage and watch the scenery outside the window as we zoom in and out of tunnels. It takes seven stops before we arrive in Nice near the airport. We exit the train and realize the wait for the elevator is pretty long. Either ...

  9/15/25– My body is almost done with this trip. I feel the last few days of stairs have really taken its toll and now I’m wishing I would’ve planned Monaco better. Case in point, this morning we wanted to go to Monte Carlo Casino (world famous James Bond one). I thought we had until 1pm to take the tour of the gaming area before they open to the public (as they don’t allow photos during those hours), but apparently they close this off at noon. With us already being dressed up, we decide to go anyway to at least take some photos around the casino and see what else we’re able to do. It takes thirteen minutes walking in the shade and bam, what a nice looking building. We go inside and it’s confirmed that we can’t tour the place today as it’s passed the time. Will just have to come back tomorrow before we leave on our train. I am able to get some pretty cool photos from inside the atrium though. I was hoping to spend some more time here but there really isn’t anything to do. ...

  9/14/25– We get off to a late start this morning as we needed the rest. Slept in, ate breakfast and didn’t go out until 12:30pm. The skies are a nice blue today giving us a much different impression of Monaco than before. Interestingly, it’s not very hot outside as we navigate down the hill toward the port. There’s no way we’re going to go back up to our AirBnb this way later. Once at the water, we take the long road up to the Prince’s Palace (which is located on what they call the Rock). Here we see the yachts at Port Hurcule and have a great view of the town. When we finally reach the top we arrive just in time to see the changing of the guards.         With tickets already in hand, we go through security (which is pretty lax) and take our time strolling through each room and taking in the more modern touches thrown into this centuries old palace built in 1191. Next, we continue down the path to the Cathedral of Monaco. This church holds the remain...