Europe @ 2.4 km/h (38 page)

SNCF. South, North, Comédie-Française. Of course that’s not what it stands for,
³¹
but it might, given how French advertising is done with style, too — and this from a railway network priming itself for a showdown with the Government. My ticket envelope features an ad showing a man tied to a chair in his living room. The room is bedecked with party balloons, his head with coloured bird feathers, suggesting a birthday party interrupted. The text says, ‘
Qu’est-ce
qui peut vous empêcher de partir?
’ ‘What’s stopping you leaving?’ Once again, when you least expect it — you know how it is —
chic
just happens.

1160-1169 km

If your natural walking pace is 5 km/h, you will soon leave laggardly old me — shuffling along at 2.4 km/h — in your wake. (No need to get your calculator out, I’ve done the maths.) Now, if Monaco, the world’s second smallest nation, were a perfect square — instead of a straggling strip of land 3 km long by, on average, 600 metres wide — it would take you just 68 minutes to walk your way around its perimeter; even I could circumnavigate it in a respectable marathon world record time. And they call this a sovereign state. Ha!

Well, at least it is a state with a sovereign, the latest in a line — the House of Grimaldi — stretching back 750 years. Prince Albert II, despite the diminutiveness of his realm, is far more impressive a character than many a more powerful supremo. Monaco jealously guards its independence — some would say because as a tax haven it needs to. Yes, it has its own phone code (377) and Web suffix (mc) but somehow, you feel, the claim to a place in the sun must rest on more solid foundations.

This chapter joins the style élite in treating the principality as part of the French Riviera. If Monaco had all the paraphernalia of a sovereign state, none could be more Ruritanian. Take the railway.

SNCF trains run here on SNCF tracks. A navy,
peut-être
? But if there were a Monégasque — lovely, bizarre adjective — Navy, its home port would have to be the marina. What geopolitical minnow could take it on? Liechtenstein is landlocked and Malta a long way off.

For a comic-opera state, though, Monaco has had its share of tragedy. Even the most ardent republican might be forgiven for choking back a tear or two at the saga of Grace Kelly, the film star who turned her back on Hollywood for the prince of her dreams.

As we shall see, Monaco is replete with reminders of the princess. But it is also famous for other reasons: the Grand Prix race through its narrow winding streets; its casino, whose elegance and period charm a hundred Las Vegases could never equal; and its high life, in both senses — its precipitous rise from the Mediterranean to the Alps, and extravagant economy, which puts even Norway’s in the shade. Oh, and every day there are sightings of Elvis. Just read on and see if there aren’t.

But will it be possible for me to explore Monaco at all? And how can I ever afford to stay there? If Paris hotels demanding more than €50 a night could upset my financial balance, what will it take to break the bank in exclusive Monte Carlo?

This sunny late-October day I took the 9 am bus from Nice. All along this coast, the kaleidoscope revealed more pastel-pink mansions, sun-spangled waters and an elegant sufficiency of Nature’s own curves and switchbacks, cove after bay after inlet all the way until we passed through a narrow road tunnel that whizzed us out of France and into the sovereign enclave.

On Monte Carlo’s main street, Boulevard des Moulins, I kept one eye peeled for possible lodgings while the other went window-shopping. When I spotted a €1200 price tag next to a pair of crocodile shoes it gave me quite a shock … I’d never realised they wore any. The shopkeeper, Michaela, on seeing my gobsmacked visage through the window, tried to humour me. Was I interested in buying? ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I have €1200 on me right now.’ She suggested I buy one shoe now and its fellow in two months’ time.
Drôle d’idée!

Finding a hotel here makes Paris seem simplicity itself. I tried three: the France (friendly but
complet
), the Versailles (unfriendly but
complet
) and, at the latter’s suggestion, the admirably accessible Terminus (even friendlier than the France but … you guessed it). Monaco thus becomes the first country I’ve ever visited without sleeping in. My three days there were punctuated with late-night retreats to, and early-morning sorties from, Nice.

Even the prospect of visiting it filled me with despair until a café manager pointed out an off-street pedestrian tunnel leading to a bank of lifts that take you, via more tunnelling, to the upper town.

On every hand, panels headed ‘
Parcours Princesse Grace
’ (the Princess Grace Tour) present black-and-white photographs from the public life of the micro-state’s former First Lady. One, from April 1956, a week before they wed, shows the Sovereign Prince ‘taking His yacht, the
Deo Juvante II,
out to meet His fiancée, Ms Grace Patricia Kelly’. Somehow I find it unlikely Grace Kelly was ever addressed as Ms in her lifetime.

Passing another shop window — something it is difficult to avoid doing in Monte Carlo — I notice a yacht advertised for €3.6 million (about A$6 million). Judging by the glossy photos, it is worth every penny, but that kind of outlay would make the crocodile shoe pinch.

To visit Monte Carlo, and not the casino? Unthinkable. But a budget traveller has no cash to throw away on the baccarat table or roulette wheel. This casino is so exclusive it even charges €10 (A$17) just to enter. I’d been a high roller ever since replacing my orange-foam seat with a state-of-the-art gel-filled cushion, but I knew a single night here could spell the end of my European travels. And then I had a brainwave … Flashing my passport ID at the receptionist, I mentioned my big idea. She giggled, then whispered to her colleague, who also giggled. I was sure one of them was going to call a liveried guard to throw me out. But on regaining her composure the first receptionist merely waved a hand in the direction of the betting halls and said, ‘I like Australians. You can enter
gratuit
’.

Free! As free as the beggars you never see in Monaco, at least as free as the bin scroungers of Vieux Nice, but with so much more chance of getting rich, I wheeled into the plush-carpeted betting hall before she could change her mind. At its far end sat a bespectacled man in a zoo-like cage. Apologetic for troubling him — which seemed to amuse him — I introduced myself as a long-distance traveller crossing Europe on a budget, before launching into an explanation of what I wanted to do.

‘In English we have a saying “to bet one’s bottom dollar”,’ I began, repeating myself in French to avoid any misunderstanding, ‘“
se parier le dernier dollar”
.’

‘Tonight I’ve brought one American dollar with me and’ — his amused smile now broadened into a horse laugh before I could declare my intention — ‘I would like to bet this dollar at the casino. Nothing more, just the dollar.’

‘You won’t be able to do that on the games tables,’ said L.E.J. (his initials are on the voucher he exchanged for my greenback). ‘But,’ he brightened, ‘it will be perfectly possible on the slot machines.’

The voucher stated that I had 66 eurocents to play with. This was duly rounded down to 65c when I handed it up to the gentlemen in bow ties at the high counter in the
salle
of the one-armed bandits. Upon explaining my purpose once more, I expected to be ushered into the anteroom formerly kept for gamblers who had lost their worldly wealth, where they were left alone with a pearl-handled revolver. (These days, instead of a graceful way out, the casino’s least successful clients are furnished with a towelette of the kind normally favoured by airlines, packed snugly inside a pouch all too easily mistaken for a condom sachet.)

But, no, they all had a jolly good laugh before swapping my voucher for tokens, and Gilles, the youngest ‘client liaison’, offered to lend me his personal assistance with the enterprise. We proceeded to one of the many fruit machines (they doubtless sound more grandiose in French) that populate the room like tin soldiers in well-drilled formation. Gilles inserted a €5 note — not part of the stake, just to operate the machine. ‘And now,’ he said, feeding tokens into the slot, ‘each press of the button’ (the equivalent of pulling a lever) ‘costs 5c, so your 65c gains you thirteen chances.’

‘Lucky me!’ I commented, a trifle prematurely. ‘And just suppose I’m successful with my dollar. Tell me, Gilles, how much could I win?’ After a couple of seconds’ lightning calculation, ‘One thousand eight hundred euro.’ My brain raced: A$3000! Not bad for a night’s work … I felt Lady Luck would be sure to smile — if only she could avoid laughing outright.

After two or three non-results I resorted to another button — the slot-machine equivalent of AutoDial, thinking, Perhaps I am trying too hard. Two more tries and my luck turned. Three lemons in a row, followed by the jingle of coins. Three euro.

‘What do you want to do?’ Gilles put me on the spot. I needed no studio audience to make my mind up for me, ‘That’s easy. I vowed to bet my bottom dollar, and at the moment I’ve only wagered some of it. I am going to bet the whole dollar — and nothing but the dollar. Play on, my man.’

After 22 stabs at glory the machine cleaned me out. I took defeat with good grace, consoling myself that I’d found a novel way to cut my losses. Not since their great varnished doors first swung open in the 1890s, I felt sure, would these neo-Classical chambers of Mammon with their marble statues and crystal chandeliers have witnessed such a scene.

Had Gilles ever heard of a gentleman called Kerry Packer? A polite shake of the head. He was too young to know of the late media mogul’s gambling renown. On learning something of the legend, he said loyally, ‘Ours is the only casino in the world where we will never say, “You cannot keep playing here because you have won too much.” Never.’

How much was the biggest win in the slot-machine room? This he could answer. ‘Eight hundred thousand euro.’ (That is A$1.3 million at the then current conversion rate.) ‘I suppose you can’t give me the winner’s name?’ ‘He was an Italian gentleman — a really nice guy, but he was already rich. He was like a child, so happy he was — and he has a photo of himself being presented with his cheque.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said, suppressing a blush of envy. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Oh, soon afterwards he lost €2 million playing craps.’ (At least I think he said craps.)

My mission was complete — I had bet my bottom dollar — and, seeing it was nearly midnight, I was anxious to be off. If I missed the last train back to Nice my wheelchair was bound to turn into a pumpkin, and where would that get me? But Gilles detained me a little longer, disappearing into the next room to fetch a waitress who bore aloft a stylish 33 cl glass of Coca-Cola on a silver platter. Normally this would have cost €7 (A$12), but Gilles said he had found my visit very entertaining and, presenting me with the Coke and a Monte Carlo commemorative pen — both ‘on the house’ — and (‘but really, you shouldn’t have’) a lemon-scented paper towel, he declared, ‘
Même quand on perd, on gagne
.’ ‘Even when you lose, you win.’

Say what you will, the Monêgasques are not without a sense of humour: 100 metres from the casino stands a neo-Classical
nonpareil
, the Hotel Hermitage. Room prices are graded from ‘low season’ — during which the cheapest room in the house costs €360 (A$600) a night — to ‘very high season’, at New Year or any time between mid-July and mid-August, when the most expensive room in the house (named, simply, The Suite) costs ‘from €1995’ (A$3325) a night.