Monaco

Monaco: the ‘Jewel’ of the Mediterranean. 

(I mean the huge, obscene, Louis XIV style Jewel)

By Eric Vazquez

MONACO!! It’s no wonder that this country shares its first three letters with the English word, ‘money’. Location, location, location. This country, the second smallest in the world next to the Vatican, is surrounded by France at its right, left, and rear. Its mountainside front, is a luxurious balcony view of the Mediterranean Sea.

Turn on the news today and you’ll see the middle school bickering going on between China and Trump as they wage a tariff war against each other. They’re possibly destroying American heartland businesses by taxing imports and exports in an attempt to ‘1 up’ each other. After spending one afternoon in Monaco, it’s hard to think this country will ever share this tariff problem with us.

Monaco doesn’t make anything, export anything, or grow anything. Correction...money. That’s the only thing that grows on trees here, and those trees are imported and planted here daily. Seems as though money from all over the world is magnetically drawn to this place, and that’s how this tiny country operates.

I can’t know for sure, but I don’t believe the 3-bedroom yachts parked in the bay, belong to the upper class residents we may see when driving through pretty Fairfield and Trumbull neighborhoods. We’re talking Vanderbilt and Rockefeller money here. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the fee for parking one of these behemoth sea monsters in a tiny Monaco bay, is more per month than retail price of the yacht itself. That’s the kind of exclusivity this member’s only country boasts.

There is a royal family here, anyone who knows the story of American actress Grace Kelly is aware of this. By just walking through the main streets though, I assume that everyone who lives here is royalty of some kind. A few who transplanted and called Monaco home include: Bjorn Borg (Tennis Royalty), the late Roger Moore (James Bond: 007 Royalty), Bono of U2 (Rock and Roll Royalty), and Ringo Starr (Music Royalty Period).

Middle class tourism certainly plays its role here, so I didn’t have to be related to Scrooge McDuck to get a good meal or buy some souvenirs. However, I knew that the row of large silver ice buckets filled with unopened Louis Roederer Cristal bottles, and left unattended on the dock near the yachts, were not a welcoming present to me. For me, Monaco may as well be called Never-Never Land.