The Shark Lagoon is enormous! It contains 450 square meters of water with sharks, rays, groupers, jacks, moral eels and turtles, on a coral reef that teems with tropical fish and live corals. The presentation of live corals in such a space is a first. This tank can be viewed from four different angles. One panel alone is 5.90 metres high and 7.90 metres wide.
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Monte Carlo Daily Photo and Menton Daily Photo celebrate their 5th birthdays today - that's one photo (sometimes more) every single day for five years - twice! Not quite sure how it happened, but it did!
In fact, it all started with Eric Tenin's
Paris Daily Photo and his vision for a world-wide City Daily Photo community of which today there are 1452 representing cities all over the world. I will be forever grateful to Eric for starting something that was to totally change my life and in ways I never could have imagined. Who knew I'd fall asleep at night reading books on photography!
According to Google, Monte Carlo Daily Photo has 13,000 visits a month (of which 7,500 are unique visits) and with 27,000 page views. You can see, with these monthly numbers, why I can't stop and indeed I don't want to! It's such a honour and a privilege to know so many people are enjoying the photos. A heartfelt thank you to my wonderful readers, for your loyalty, encouragement, kind emails and comments - without you, I think I'd have faltered long ago.
But along with the numbers have come friends - blogging friends, photography friends, people who come and visit and who I'd not have known but for the blogs. People who write me - we've never met - but are friends nonetheless. And one thing is particularly important to me, acceptance by the people of the amazing village where I live - Gorbio. Gorbio is 11 kilometres from Monaco. I adore this village, its traditions and its people who have so generously made me (a foreigner) welcome. They know me as the English woman, with the blogs - the one who always has a camera in her hand! I feel very much a part of this medieval hill village and I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me.
Please hop over to
Menton Daily Photo for a photo of me, taken by the Mayor of Gorbio, smiling at you all and saying thanks so much.
Anyone visiting Monaco and this part of the French Riviera can't have missed seeing the 'Trophy of the Alpes' at La Turbie, which overhangs the Principality of Monaco.
A small table - good olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a pepper mill - enough to get the taste buds working...
This is a view of the cathedral I'd not seen before. 
Have the aliens finally landed in Monaco!
Just a day or so more at the Oceanographic Museum and we'll go somewhere else - but we'll be back. I photographed almost none of the art within the museum and wasn't happy with many of the fish photos - so another visit will be on the cards sometime in the future.
We've left the aquarium to walk up to the roof of the Oceanographic Museum - great views from here. This old harpoon looks ready for an unsuspecting whale ... 
Aren't the colours and the corals wonderful! Today Monte Carlo Daily Photo welcomes guest photographer, Jean- François Deligeard.
The Aquarium is divided into several zones - the Mediterranean zone, the Atlantic Ocean, the Shark Lagoon (of which we saw a part yesterday) and the Tropical Zone.
The Shark Lagoon is enormous! It contains 450 square meters of water with sharks, rays, groupers, jacks, moral eels and turtles, on a coral reef that teems with tropical fish and live corals. The presentation of live corals in such a space is a first. This tank can be viewed from four different angles. One panel alone is 5.90 metres high and 7.90 metres wide.
In this area of the Oceanographic Museum, you find stuffed fish, a polar bear, replicas of ships, a walrus, even a mermaid (albeit a mock-up!) and all in an environment resplendent with beautiful chandeliers. You'll also find some of the 450 decorated shells, part of the Ginestet collection acquired by the museum in 1992.
The Hall of Zoological Oceanography, renamed Salle Albert Ier in 2004, features a mock-up of one of three laboratories on the Hirondelle II.
There are a lot of skeletons in the Museum. I didn't note who this creature once was but I'd guess a giant turtle.
In the west wing of the Museum, the Hall of Applied Oceanography, renamed the Whale Hall in 2004, displays a series of skeletons of marine mammals.
When Prince Albert I of Monaco created the Oceanographic Museum, he wanted to associate art with science and so throughout the building and on the facades outside, you'll find many incredible works of art.
The first thing that strikes you as you enter the Oceanographic Museum is that the building is going to be every bit as stunning as the fish - and it is.
These photos of the Oceanographic Museum on le rocher are by way of introduction to a series that starts on Monday.
Can't you just hear the music! This sculpture - Melody by Arman - stands on le rocher just above Port Hercule.
