Billionaires Bay

I think I’d only been in IBM’s London office for a week after being transferred from Glasgow when my boss came wandering by and said, ‘Cupples – we need somebody in Monte Carlo. You’ll do and take your kilt with you’. This was in 1980.

And so a few days later I was off to work in Monaco for a week to try and sell some software. Don’t ask about the kilt – even I can’t remember why I was asked to take it.

Prior to that trip, I’d only been abroad a couple of times but on each occasion all the travel arrangements had been made for me. This trip was rather different though as I’d had to arrange flights, hotels and all the other things necessary for a week away.

When I arrived at Nice Airport there were two ways to get to Monaco – helicopter or taxi. I dismissed taking the helicopter out of hand and hired a taxi which took the coast road (the Basse Corniche) only to find later that the helicopter cost exactly the same – about £25. It was to be 25 years before I managed to get on one of those helicopters to Monaco but I’m sorry to say that whilst the 6 minute trip is quite magical, the cost has risen to around £90, significantly more expensive than a cab.

Despite the disappointment though (of not taking a helicopter in 1980), the one thing I remember to this day was passing the most glorious piece of land jutting out into the sea. It was covered in magnificent villas and pine trees and was, for a boy just out of Glasgow, the most exotic piece of real estate I’d ever seen. I remember saying to myself that if I could live anywhere, that’s where it would be. It was all fantasy of course. The piece of land I was looking at was St Jean Cap Ferrat, now apparently, the second most expensive place to live in the world. I don’t suppose it was much different all those years ago?

30 years later, I’m not too far from Cap Ferrat (about 35 minutes by car) and occasionally I’ve gone down there, where amazingly, you can eat on the bay front for a remarkably reasonable cost despite what the article linked to this post says. Vivienne, who is staying with us at the moment also had a condo apartment overlooking the western side of Cap Ferrat and it was almost like fulfilling my dream of 30 years previous when I sat on her terrace overlooking the bay and the mega yachts moored there. At dusk, the lights would come on in those magnificent villas and you just wondered who was in them and what sort of fancy dinner they’d be serving up.

All of this nostalgia came about after reading an article in the London Evening Standard -‘Billionaire’s Bay’ - who lives there and where to eat and be seen. Read it at the following URL.

http://londonabroad.standard.co.uk/2009/08/living-it-up-in-billionaires-bay.html