Posted by DaddyBird
I recently went on an unexpected business trip to Monaco. The magazine that I work for, Shufflegazine, had been invited to attend a trade show, but my boss was unable to attend due to other obligations, so he asked if I would like to go in his place. It took me about 3 seconds to say, “yes!”
The trip really was mostly business. The trade show, DISTREE XXL, is aimed at bringing together IT & consumer electronics vendors with distribution companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It was a good opportunity for the magazine to find out about new tech products that night be coming to our region and to get acquainted with some companies that we may not have had contact with yet. That meant I spent as much time as I could talking to representatives of the companies in attendance and almost none seeing the sights of Monaco. I had hoped to slip away for an hour or two to visit the museum or a historical building, but time and the need to talk to as many as possible just did not permit me to do so. I did get a little free time late one evening, but by then all the historical sites were long closed for the day and even the little local restaurants were locking up for the night.
So my glimpses of Monaco were pretty much limited to what I saw on the walks in Monte Carlo, between the hotel I stayed in and the hotel where the trade show was being held. That being said, for an almost completely “all work, no play” trip, it really was a pretty nice time, and a beautiful place to be doing business for a few days. Attending a tech conference for the magazine and talking to people about their cool new products isn’t bad duty at all, and Monaco is one most lovely places to get to do it. Also, the food served to the attendees of the show at the Fairmont Hotel was outstanding. So while it was busy and tiring, and even though there were many things close by that I hated missing, overall it was still a great several days.
Here are a few pictures:
I got to stay at the beautiful Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo. Certainly the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. One of “The Leading Hotels of the World” according to the publicity literature. This fortunate geek boy certainly can’t dispute that. It was gorgeous, very comfortable and the staff was highly gracious.
The elevators in the hotel were small, but nicely appointed.
My room was too big to capture in a photo without a very wide-angle, fish-eye lens.
Many channels available on the TV, including French, Italian and other European channels. Interestingly, channels for Dubai and AbuDhabi TV were also included. An episode of “The Million’s Poet” is on!
It was a fairly short walk between my hotel and the Fairmont where the trade show was being held, with some nice sights in between, in particular the Monte Carlo Casino.
Adjacent to that was a fancy shopping mall and the Café de Paris.
And across from that was the most adorable little police station that I’ve ever seen.
It was just a little further to the Fairmont Hotel where the show was being held. The Fairmont is a much more angular and modern building than the others. If you’ve ever watched the Grand Prix de Monaco, you may have seen the Fairmont. As you can see in the picture, the hairpin turn on the Gran Prix course is right in front of the Fairmont. Also the course goes through a tunnel that is underneath the hotel.
The Fairmont is situated right on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and has bay windows running all along the seaward side of the building, so while at the conference we were constantly treated to spectacular views.
Sometimes the sea and the sky were unbelievably blue.
I have several more pictures from Monaco to share, but I put them in another post. Stay tuned!
Authors present were (left to right) David J. Taylor, Chris Cleave, (moderator Rosie Goldsmith), Rachel Hore, and RJ Ellory. Admittedly, I had not heard of any of these authors prior to today. We enjoyed the session and it was interesting to hear the perspectives of the authors and to see the vast differences in their personalities.
We had a nice chat with him, too. He’s on Twitter, so he took down DaddyBird’s “handle” and had already “tweeted” to him before we got home.
Next was Qais Sedki, author of the first Arabic Manga series, Gold Ring. It isn’t available in English, yet, but we bought the Arabic first issue anyway. We chatted with him also. He is very interested in promoting both reading and Emirati culture. I look forward to the English version.
DaddyBird
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