Money, money money

Estimates place Monaco's GDP at $6.9 billion, with the world's highest per capita income at $186,175. The unemployment rate is 0%, as of 2011..........So 

   I must leave, I'll have to go

To Las Vegas or Monaco

And win a fortune in a game, my life will never be the same...

Money, money, money

Must be funny

In the rich man's world

Money, money, money

Always sunny

In the rich man's world

Aha-ahaaa

All the things I could do

If I had a little money

It's a rich man's world

For me, Monte Carlo and Monaco are synonymous with wealth, the high life, fame and fortune. European royalty and Hollywood royalty. James Bond. Formula 1. Grand Prix. So what's it really like?

It's the little things you notice about Monaco. The $10 water at the Cafe de Paris (worth every cent as a people watching ticket), the distinctive bbbrrraaaaaat of Ferraris, the Russian accents of the impossibly blond, impossibly tall, well, blonds. It's the canary yellow Bentley and the way the security guards rush to open doors and stop traffic for the departure of a particular client. 

On the harbour, simply the biggest private pleasure craft in the world jostle for attention, either decorated for Christmas, many with live trees, or resting, buffed and polished, for their owner to fly into Nice by private jet for the summer. Strangely, most are registered in the Cayman Islands. 

And yet, its also a bit tacky. Lots of 'I love Monaco' tshirt shops and a foreshore that is clunky and inelegant, apart from the boats. 

For all of us, the best part was a table at the Cafe de Paris, adjacent to the hotel and the casino, watching the world go by. Here the world is a rarified one of high rollers, merchant bankers and the famous. We only recognised Cadell Evans, but I suspect that's because we are not au fait with the mega rich. 

And the cars. It was like a concours for RR, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche. No BMW here. Hugh saw his first Bugatti Veyron ( for the initiated, the world's fastest road car and a snip at $2 million). For Rich, it was walking the F1 track, taking in the hairpin, the tunnel, the climb up from the marina.

In the end though, this is not just a rarefied atmosphere, its a partial vacuum, sucking in money made elsewhere in buckets by virtue of zero personal tax. Its engines are greed and cost-shifting. Hardly glamorous?