I had a bit of a get going prob mostly cuz there was free wifi...but the fact that the place did not have breakfast included was an incentive to move on... I had a sunny day but also a good breeze.. first the road took me into Menton proper, and I got to see the older part of town.. it had lots of tourists and lots of shops for them.. sensing I had arrived into the land of expensive.. I bought a sandwhich from a shop to go and water from a 'potable water' tap in a square and then I headed on.. I did not go into any church here, and wished I had later when I saw none in Monte-Carlo.. I did stop at a tourist office and was told of a coastal walk for only pedestrians that would take me to Monte-Carlo.. I walked to the end of this town and ate my sandwhich on a park bench looking back at the view... I should mention besides of course the ocean, beach front, and buildings, there are also huge cliff walls defining the backdrop of this town, and would do so in all the later ones as well.
Cap Martin is where the walk began and it was very beautiful..therre were some paths off to rocky cliffs bellow for sun bathing but it was not safe for swimming according to the signs.. the path had steps in areas but nothing too challenging.. as I came around the western side of the coast I could see Monte-Carlo in the distance and the rock formations bellow wher stricking.. perfect photo opps.. towards the land on the other side of the path there were hidden villas... all I could see were the garden grounds but not the properties... once the path headed towards the land... it started going along the edge of the train tracks... the path got narrow and there was a railing but of course for me it was a height trigger. The worst part was in two sections... I did the first section very wobbly kneed then came to a rest in an area that was a bit wider... I now felt stuck.. either way I would have to do it again... I watched some other people coming across opposite direction from me.. they were having non of the issues I as.. I marveled at their confidence... one man even leaned over and looked down for a long time...giving me shivers... finally a couple came who were going in my direction... I decided to follow them in hopes that if I just watched their feet and tried to keep up with them it would not be so bad... this trick worked. The very end they got too far ahead but I did it... I thanked them secretly because they had no idea they had helped so much..they were deeply involved in conversation... luckily that was it for the challenge.. I came across a cafe bar and had water and a scoop of ice cream..yikes expensive..clearly Monaco is out of my price range...i think this little coastal excursion might have taken longer than had I stayed on the road...but I did finally arrive in Monaco... there seemed to be roads in three or more tiers here.. I walked a middle one for a while..but it did not seem interesting... just high rise fancy hotels... in fact the whole town from my perspective was just mainly high rises.. and little charm... I moved down to the coastal road.. there was only sections of beach which could be seen the rest and there was not much was swallowed up by high end hotel walls.. I did not really want to spend time here since there was nothing really drawing me, so I walked through.. I followed the coast and got into the harbor area... there seemed to be an excessive amount of construction and road work going on... and the harbor was the most ugly part... I was surprised how much american english I was hearing here, and in Menton.. considering the dollar is weak and america's economy has been hurting for at least a decade..i found it surprising that there would be so many american's in probably one of the most expensive city states in the world..finally I got out of the ugly section..i did come across a little japenese garden and walked through that.. then up and out of town...
there was another public garden near the end and elevators to the main shopping areas...but I just wanted get away from narrow streets and construction noise... and on I went.. I was kinda getting a bit tired and knew what ever town came next i'd probably be looking for a room.... and I was now high above the ocean..and there was a side walk and homes and shops along the way..there was no real gap from Monaco's to the next town which was Cap-d'Ail... I saw a tourist office and went in, I was told that there was a youth hostel at the bottom of this winding road right by the ocean but it would not open till 5.30. I made sure that they would definitely have a room for me because if I had to wait till that long I would loose steam to look for another place and also I would have to climb back up the hill.. I got assurances so went to a near by supermarket and got some water and snacks in case there was nothing down there.. I went into a bar restaurant but found out that they did not serve food in the evenings so I had a drink and just played on my lap top... then I went down hill it was narrow one way winding streets.. there were villas hidden behind big walls on the way down.. I was surprised that a youth hostel could be found in such a posh neighborhood, but sure enough there it was... a young man seemed to be running it single-handedly he had me wait while he finished the laundry folding then I signed in.. it was an impressive old building over looking the water with a pedestrian path right bellow for walking along the coast... it had free internet and did have meals for half price of most restaurants. So I got settled in a large empty dorm room there seemed to be only one other person's stuff in there.. the whole place seemed pretty empty which surprised me... after I showered I sat on the balcony and intereneted etc. while the young man was preparing the evening meal, answering calls, and talking to potential guest who was asking a lot of questions but did not stay. Eventually I would see more and more people trickle in.. he set the plates outside on the balcony for seven or so settings... then I would meet the other guests. A young french couple with child, a german woman from munich, an older irish man, and an older french woman originally from the swiss border. The young couple did not speak english and it seemed slowly got disregarded while everyone else conversed in english... food was salad with mozzarella, french fries, and a meat dish, also a plate of cheese and ice cream bars for desert and of course plenty of bread.. the french couple had a bottle of vodka they tried to offer but I was leery of something that strong. The irish man seems to take regular trips down to this area in france. He was very quiet and seemed very humble he talked about a bad experience with the youth hostel in Nice and the german women seemed to have had the same.. the french woman was fairly quiet but ended up talking mostly to the irish man... the german women would come to dominate the conversation. She had a lot of vitality, is the best way I can put it... It turns out I missed the Grand Prix of Monte Carlo on the day I entered France. The irish man was surprised I could not hear it from Melton, but I think I got there about half hour after the race ended. And for all I know I might have heard the noise of the race in the background to my walking and not recognized it.. Saturday was the qualifying race and the german women described this as the fun day..where the sensation of the noise and vibration in the air and the energy of the audience was quite exciting and powerful..the way she described it made it quite visceral for me... then on sunday she said was the real race and as more and more cars broke down and it came to the final rounds the tension of the audience and the seriousness was so strong that the german woman had to go take a walk away from it all, she said. I was told by the irish man that the race course is the loop through the city and the seats closed to the 'track' where the most expensive, the higher you went into town and the less visibility the cheaper...all the noise construction i'd seen and the weird set of bleachers (grand stand-in proper english) i'd seen in the port were all to do with taking down the various barriers put up for the race... so this was not typical monaco experience I had walked through.. … I had speculated on Monaco and the wealth it attracts, I though from the irish man's initial description that was similar to how I thought Switzerland used to be known as the secret bank account holder for the rich... but he corrected wryly, he said if your just rich and are avoiding taxes or the money is illegally gotten they will gladly hand you over to the authorities, but if you are very rich like banks then they will gladly protect your interests. Then we talked a bit about why I was traveling alone and I explained that a lot of people my age have mortgages and in america vacation allotments are ungenerous and even if you accumulate five weeks vacation they wont allow you to take it all at once.. therefore I now quite my job after having saved some money and do longer trips. The irish man said the issue with being trapped in mortgages is also now becoming more of a problem especially in england. He said in ireland there are coop options where you can own part of your house and the government owns part.. and if you can you can eventually buy them out.. he himself had built his own house and on a bit of land that was cheap at the time.. he said he is one of the lucky ones in his area... then I spoke with the german lady she is studying a hawaiian spiritual tradition I had never heard of called Huna. She went through a rigorous training program for several years in germany... and eventually did a final retreat in Kauaii. She told me the creator of the program had recently come to Munich and talked to a large auditorium of seekers. I was trying to imagine all these germans studying some obscure hawaiin spiritual path while we americans are oblivious. The retreat in Kauaii was done completely in german.. she also talked about Paulo Coehlo who is one of the reasons I am here and a bit of hindu ie Sai Baba and a bit of buddhist a bit of shaman...and then the problem of relationship and working with it in terms of being true to your spiritual practice... I stayed up way too late...the french woman made us all a fresh mint tea moroccon style she even poured it from high so that a lot of oxygen would get trapped in the water to enhance the flavor... she apparently lives in morocco part time but I did not have a chance to talk to her about it.. at the end in the dorm room, the german woman played a cd on her computer which was suppose to be a healing mantra chant sung by the Dalia Lama. Apparently you can not buy this cd, it can only be given to you as a gift. It was very beautiful...but it did not sound quite like I remember Dalai Lama's voice from the few times i'd heard him teach in tibetan and english.. and also not that I am an expert on mantras or sanskrit but the mantra sounded a bit more hindu than buddhist... but I fell asleep to it's healing qualities.. touched by the fact that she put it on specially for me because I was a buddhist.. the next day I googled dalai lama healing mantra and found out that it was mistakenly attributed to him, that it was in fact a dutch yogi who chanted the mantra and it was indeed hindu, but it has been attributed to many healing stories, so what ever tradition, it seems to work http://www.yoga-ez.com/gayatri-mantra.html#Anchor_47858 I kept this information to myself.
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