Day 5, July 27
Not quite as planned, but fun none the less! - Part 3
The village is cute and we stopped ever so often to take a photo.
There is a long steep flight of stairs up to the railway station
and we were up at the top a train was just leaving. We were not worried as I had looked up the schedule and it had shown a train running to Monaco every half hour. There was a long line of people inside buying tickets and it took us about 15 minutes until it was our turn.
I got our return tickets, then asked about the next train to Monaco. It was not until an hour and a half. Silly me had not taken into consideration, we were travelling on a Sunday.
We headed outside and quickly contemplated what to do and decided to just walk back into the village for some time until our train was to depart. It was now half past 11 and our train was not leaving until shortly before 1am.
We walked along a path high above the waterline until we reached the center, where we browsed some of the shops.
It was hot and we both were tired already and very thirsty, so we decided to find a restaurant and have a drink and maybe a bite to eat as breakfast had not been the best.
We passed several restaurants that did not offer indoor seating until we found one that had both, indoor and outdoor seating, the La Fille du Pêcheur. We were the only ones who wanted to sit inside.
The server was very nice and brought our drinks out right away, which we finished really quickly and reordered right away. Then we started to have a look at the menu and while we were still weighing options, we were served an amuse gueule,
white bread, topped with sautéed onions and cheese, which had then be toasted under a grill. It tasted really heavenly and we knew we had picked a good restaurant. But I didnt feel like anything fancy, but had my heart set on a
Deep Fried Mozzarella Sticks basket, while Tom was far more adventurous and ordered the
Exotic salad bowl with grapefruit, orange, fresh pine apple shrimps and avocado. It took a while for our food to arrive and time was ticking away. Once we were served our food, we knew that we only had two choices, either speed eat and hot foot it up to the station again, or forget about the visit to Monaco.
It was an easy decision to dump the idea of going to Monaco in favour of a nice leisurely lunch and a stroll through Villefranche, especially since we both had been to Monaco before.
So we took our sweet time to cool down and enjoy our lunch. And since we now had more time, we decided that if we were in France we needed to have a crepe for dessert. The restaurant offered several different ones which all sounded wonderful and in the end Tom ordered the
Crepe with Grand Marnier, while I ordered the
Crepe with Caramelized apples Flambed with Calvados & served with cinnamon ice-cream. Both were huge, well cooked crepes, which tasted heavenly. When we were were done with our dessert and had paid the bill we took a quick restroom break before heading out into the sun again. We walked back to the center where there was a huge castello and while we walked we were passed by one of those little sightseeing trams.
It was hot and we did some window shopping and when we got to the tourist information we walked inside to ask where the train was going to leave from. It was leaving from right outside the tourist office, just a few meters up the hill. When we finally found it, the train had just arrived and we asked the driver when the next tour would be. It was supposed to start in 45 minutes. Good, we headed back into the village, but it was pretty hot, so after a few minutes we headed up the hill again, where the little train was parked and decided to wait it out in the little street Café.
They had ice-cream sundaes, so I ordered a
Coupe Danmark, which was vanilla ice-cream, peaches and whipped cream, while Tom tried the
Monaco beer. We also ordered a
bottle of water. Tom enjoyed his funny looking beer while I worked hard to make a dent into my sundae, but I was not very successful. That sundae was HUGE. We spent about half an hour sitting there, enjoying the view while people watching. Then it was time to head to the little train as the proposed time had come.
To be continued ..........
When I come home that tired, it usually means I had a great time, and I certainly did have a great time on this cruise! Did some of the most beautiful scuba dives I've ever done. I just need more recovery time than I did when I was in my younger years. 
