Monaco

We took the train to Monaco (from Nice) for the day. At roughly 2 square kilometers, it's the second smallest country in the world (after the Vatican). Saskatchewan has farms bigger than that! Our initial destination was the Oceanographic Museum. Also known as the Temple of the Sea, it was built by King Albert 1 as a "palace dedicated to art and science" over a century ago.



We mostly went for the aquarium. The actual "museum" part doesn't interest me anywhere near as much as living things. As usual, it was a fun challenge to try to get some decent photos from the dark aquarium.





I'm not sure if this shrimp was actually cleaning the moray eel, or if it was just hanging out. The moray didn't seem to mind!



These juvenile anemone fish are bred at the aquarium. They were fun to watch as they roamed around and then all darted back to the anemone when something spooked them.



After the aquarium we wandered by the nearby cathedral and palace. I'm not much of a "tourist". We didn't see any exhibits about the royalty, or James Bond at Monte Carlo, or even antique cars. And I'm not into shopping, especially the kind found in most tourist places. But I can usually find something to catch my interest, like birds or flowers, that are found almost everywhere.





As we were wandering around we saw signs for Le Jardin Animalier (the zoological garden). It turned out to be a small zoo, founded in 1954 by Prince Rainier III. We had to wait for it to reopen after lunch. It seems odd to me that obvious tourist attractions close down for several hours over lunch.

Shelley didn't think I'd have any success calling the collared peccaries, but I guessed they would come investigate to see if we had any food for them. The last time we saw these was in Big Bend National Park in Texas.



It doesn't take exotic animals to catch my eye. These feathers were on the back of a chicken that was loose in the zoo.



I think my favorite part was the duck pond, which had colorful mandarin ducks along with great reflections in the water.





I also managed a few more reflection photos of older buildings reflected in more modern glass sided ones.



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