ITALY BLOG SEPTEMBER 13th, 2025 - MONACO

 

9/13/25– It’s an early start to our day as our train leaves around 9am. Luckily there’s a taxi stand just outside our building that takes us straight to the station, because a 16 minute walk would not have been fun. Did I mention they don’t have Uber?

Our train leaves on time and I’m wedged between the window and the passenger in the aisle the entire two hour journey. Why do they have the rows facing each other with strangers for the entire coach car? It just don’t make no sense.

After a 15 minute pit stop at the Italy/France border station of Vermillion, we hop onto the next train without tickets purchased. Why you ask? Because I tried to pay for this part of the journey beforehand and wouldn’t let me. It’s just 30 minutes on a regional train to Monaco (yeah a new country) so no biggie, although I do wonder for a moment as police come down the aisle asking random people for their passports. We are not picked.

Train lets out in a tunnel and we have no idea which direction to go, so we follow where everyone else is, take multiple sideways escalators that resemble an airport and finally exit outside only to notice we are a 16 minute walk from our AirBnb when it should have been only about six minutes. It’s also straight uphill. Nah, there has to be a taxi around here somewhere.

We push our bags to the street with no taxi in sight, we continue walking down toward the water for about ten minutes before we finally see a taxi stand and wait another ten minutes for one to show up. Turns out to be 25 Euros for the ride, but it beats lugging everything up stairs. The taxi is also a Tesla which is quite interesting.

Following the email instruction from our AirBnb host, we locate the key in the lockbox and enter the main doorway only to find that our place is on the top level. We are talking four flights of steps without an elevator to bring our luggage up. Somehow, I muster just enough energy to do just that and rewarded with a full on apartment.

Plenty of space, with a kitchen, living room, separate bedroom and air conditioning that cools us off quickly. Also, the view outside is not so bad either. Still, a first floor place wouldn’t have been so bad either.

The weather is not the best with spots of rain and cloudy skies so we check our itinerary to see what we could do that doesn’t involve an outdoor activity. We find one in the Prince’s Car Collection and have just over an hour before it closes, so no time to waste.

We walk six minutes to the train station entrance (which is different than where we were let out earlier) and quickly realize that this station has multiple escalators and elevators that take us near the water. If only we knew this coming in as we must have turned the wrong way before.

It’s difficult to be in picture mode when the skies are so gloomy, but we manage to cross the street to the port area and enter the Car Collection Museum. This place is fascinating as it has all types of vehicles from concept cars in the early years to F1 racers. Jay Leno would be proud. There are also two floors, enough to keep me interested throughout. 

So, at least we did something today, got the lay of the land, saw the Monaco race track and finish with a trip to the grocery store for food over the course of the next few days. Tomorrow should be better weather so can’t wait to venture out more.