[Leica] IMGs: Monaco

[Douglas Barry]

Delighted to meet you too, Jim!

Douglas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Nichols" <jhnichols at lighttube.net>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] IMGs: Monaco


> Interesting views, including your portrait.  Nice to meet you!
>
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
>
> On 10/20/2016 9:28 AM, Douglas Barry wrote:
>> Visited Monaco briefly on Monday the 3rd Oct in the hope that it wouldn't 
>> be as crowded as it can be. Sadly, it was, with crowds of tourists doing 
>> awkward poses and selfies in what I now consider to be one of the most 
>> over-hyped places on earth. Overbuilding and the rush of money have 
>> ruined what was a pleasant spot. Many Belle Epoque villas have 
>> disappeared to be replaced by mini, and indeed maxi, skyscrapers to house 
>> the thousands of rich, and even vulgarly rich, tax exiles who want to 
>> escape to, as Somerset Maugham put it "A sunny place for shady people".
>>
>> I know Monaco very well, but hadn't visited it for fifteen years. I used 
>> to go to meetings every year at the IAAF headquarters at Villa Miraflores 
>> on the higher side of Casino Square. It was a wonderful building with a 
>> great view looking down across the Casino Square gardens to the Casino 
>> and the Hotel de Paris, and had been taken over by Hermann Goering - a 
>> man who, shall we say, knew what he liked - for his personal use during 
>> the Nazi era.
>>
>> The Villa Miraflores is still there, but the view is gone. Most of the 
>> Casino Square gardens are now covered in the lamentable Pavilions Monte 
>> Carlo while work is progressing on ripping out (modernising) the pleasant 
>> Avenue des Beaux Arts which is now hidden behind huge building hoardings 
>> as monsterous cranes dominate the skies. The cacophony of drills, 
>> hammers, dust etc., must be a nightmare for guests at the seriously 
>> expensive Hotel de Paris.  If I had won the Euromillions lottery and 
>> treated the family to a week in the Hotel de Paris, I'd be very 
>> disappointed. I presume the oligarchs are staying in their yachts.
>>
>> Anyway, here are six pictures that in their own way reflect the place. I 
>> include one of myself sitting in front of the statue of William Grover 
>> aka Williams in his Bugatti at the first corner of the GP circuit - an 
>> interesting man and his Wikipedia entry is worth a look. We also met a 
>> lot of Chinese tourists and saw some expensive machinery. Give the place 
>> a miss until the works are finished.
>>
>> Start here and click to the right.
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/DouglasBray/France/Cote+dAzur+2016/Monaco+1+Lalique.jpg.html
>>
>> All pictures can be enlarged for detail.
>>
>> Douglas
>>
>>
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