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Tag Archives: Monaco

About France

Good food, great wine, beautiful beaches, enchanting mountains, chic fashion, bizarre fashion, invigorating art and culture, great monuments, clean roads, few people :) well that’s France for you.

France can either intimidate you or embrace you depending on how you take it. People here are friendly unlike many contradictory beliefs. A fact that many of us don’t know but was revealed to me by a local during my visit to France was, in his very own words “ Not that we are snooty and don’t want to help the tourists by speaking in English; its just that we feel our English isn’t good enough and we are anxious that we might misguide the tourist”!! Now that gives a whole new perspective to the belief; doesn’t it?    I had a ball in France be it be Montpellier, Bourg St Maurice, Nice, Paris, Mt Ventoux, Lyon…etc. Btw Monaco and Andorra which border France are also worth a visit.

Soccer crazy

This blog is dedicated to my soccer crazy friends Anil, Dhaval, J, Naveen, Raman, Saju, Sharath and others in the Vattan’s club….hey guys hope you like it!

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Soccer is considered to be the second most popular game after cricket in India. We were in Monaco, the starting point of the much-celebrated Tour de France and walking around the streets buzzing with the tour related activities that we came across an interesting stretch overlooking the vast Mediterranean Sea. The Champions Promenade at the Grimaldi Forum is surely a place of interest for those who follow soccer.

life Around Tour de France – Stage 10

This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a professional Quizmaster and a passionate traveler

Petanque – a French pastime !!

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As we made our way from Monaco to Issoudun, we saw what is a familiar sight to us now, a group of people standing around a small patch of hard soil, each of them with small steel balls, throwing them around from a stationary spot – all just like how we played marbles when we were young. The difference here was that there were very few young people playing this game and most of the players are often in the 50’s & 60’s!!

Life Around Tour de France – Stage 2

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This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a quizmaster by profession and a foodie!

A Nice stage for the tour…

This part of South France where the race is now on, is usually known more for the sun & beaches, for the holiday spots & the jetset glitterati who sail around on their yachts – Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes…etc.

Having seen the flag off at Monaco, we decided to park ourselves somewhere on the route today to catch the race, and did we have a wonderful time?? Right from the morning, it was very hot and though we don’t sweat very much here, the climate makes you slightly uncomfortable, particularly, if you are inclined to walk around in the sun as we were.

Life Around Tour de France – Stage 1

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This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a quizmaster by profession and a passionate traveller…

Monaco turns yellow!!

Since finding a place to stay was being very expensive ( had visions of coming back home after 2 days if we were to stay at a reasonable Hotel in the city!!!), we had found a place at Nice to stay. Nice to Monaco is just around 20 minutes by train. And when we reached the station in the morning is when we found that the entire France & the Tour fans like us had all thought the same way!! So with over 20,000 people trying to get into Monaco on trains – it was just like Mumbai sub-urban days. And though there is no pushing & shoving, it was just like rush hour at Churchgate.

Life around Tour de France – Stage 0

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This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a quizmaster by profession..

All roads lead to Monaco!!

A few years back when I read Alexander Frater “Chasing the Monsoon” – a travelogue of an Englishman written in the late 80’s about how he waited for such a long time to follow the Monsoon from the beginning at Kanyakumari to its end in North & East India over a period of a whole year, it was an enchanting journey for me as a reader. I still vouch for the book as an excellent read and a must for all those who have a dream.