Gawping at the ‘rich’

Day 24 - Monaco

We took the train to Monaco today.

The tension of the place is palpable. People are materially competitive.

Their neatly pressed faces rushing somewhere. Their wrists, bound with expensive watches, grip phones into which they mouth platitudes to do deals so they can stay here. Locked in by rocks behind them and looking out on the impossibly blue azur sea where their dreams might be.

This is the beautiful Japanese Garden. An oasis of tranquility. Except it isn’t.

Outside of the photo are a herd of cranes noisily creating new towers for the wealthy to squeeze into. The works are edged by boards in which good looking professionals proclaim that they care about the ecology of the sea bed which they are building over.

Meanwhile cars momentarily crawl forward before they come to a frustrated halt and mopeds vroom in and out of the crush.

We escaped after 1.5 hours.