Continuing the spirit of visiting every country I possibly could my next goal was to visit the smallest country so far: Monaco.

With an astonishing size of a little more than 2 km² (that’s 1 km in one direction and 2 km in the other) Monaco is the second smallest country in the world (without wanted to stirr up the discussion of what even a country is again) and the smallest UN-member state.

In contrast to Liechtenstein they actually do pay with the Euro and even have their own coins, which are considered to be one of the rarest Euro coins there are. This especially applies to the special coins which have being produced in amounts from 10.000 to 25.000 coins depending on the special edition. But spoilers: I didn’t get any because I was only paying with card. Downside to convenience, I guess. And also, I didn’t even stay in Monaco, which decreased the chances even more I would say.

From Milano, I took the Flixbus to Nice as I was saying in the last post. That’s where I was staying in a hostel – just for one night though because the only reason I was there was to visit Monaco. Literally nothing else. Côte d’Azur, yes yes, beautiful, I saw, I know… but it’s not warm enough yet.

Anyway, from Nice you can easily get to Monaco via train. It only takes 25 minutes (about-ish) and coincidentally my Hostel was right next to the main station, so that helped with the travel time as well.

But chronologically: I arrived with the Flixbus at the Airport, met two German girls there with whom I went to the city center. We bought a ticket for 10 € (which I’m sure was not the right one) and boarded the tram to get us to Nice. We had a very nice chat on the way, but our ways soon parted and I made my way to the Hostel where I put my stuff and got ready to go to Monaco. I put my fancy pants on as well.

But honestly, Monaco wasn’t as posh as I expected. I mean, it was still really posh, but there were also normal people walking around there. It’s probably not as bad because it was February, but let’s just ignore that fact. Obviously there wasn’t as much going on there as well because of the time of year.

It was still a really interesting place. Really steep and really nice architecture. I honestly just walked around a bit and tried to take in the atmosphere and everything I was seeing. Fancy buildings everywhere and lots of yachts, because rich people obviously.

Because of the fact that I arrived in the late afternoon though it went dark eventually. This together with the combination of me being hungry, still a bit sick and it still being February I concocted a two phase plan:

1. Get something to eat

2. Go back to my hostel

Really mind-blowing plan, I know. So, I got something to eat. In Monaco. It was kinda expensive. Could’ve been worse, but still. Actually no, it was ridiculous now that I think about it. The food was still kind of acceptable, 14 € for a burger. Could actually be worse, especially in Monaco. But the drink was 5 € for like 100 ml. I am not exaggerating. So, what do we learn: it’s always the drinks. Always.

Not like we already knew that, but I guess we learned that it applies to Monaco as well.

Either way, I went back to my hostel shortly after that, had a nice chat with a guys from Canada and a guy from Singapor who were staying in my room as well and then went to bed pretty early because I was still sick and needed to get up early.

At 5:30 the next day, to be exact. But more on that in the next one (:

---

I can check off another country after that little adventure. We’re at 28 at this point. Not bad, not bad. A few more to come though. See you in the next country ^^

-Louis, 23, learned that Monaco tecnically has its own language