CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE COTE D'AZUR Nissa, Cannes, Monaco - you can pass through here, but not without money

When everyone talks about the crisis - economic, energy or existential - I said I would see what it looks like from the epicenter of wealth smeared with refinement. I said yes to an invitation and took it with me by plane, bus and finally on foot along the broken line of the French Riviera: Nice, Cannes, Monaco, Monte Carlo - a kind of Mărăşti, Mărăşeşti, Oituz, Nămoloasa, but without heroism and with the reinterpreted motto: you can pass through here, but not without money.

Nissa - the unofficial capital of the Côte d'Azur

We started with Nissa (Nice, as the French call it, with an emphasis on elegance), the city-symbol of Mediterranean relaxation. With over 300 sunny days a year, palm trees, the "Promenade des Anglais" and five-star hotels, Nissa seems to be the place where even the crisis sunbathes...topless. Here, poverty is discreet, hidden under a thick layer of luxury tourism. The Vieux Nice district smells of lavender, aged cheese and old money for days not kept on mattresses pulled out in fine silk. The cafes on the seafront serve champagne for the deep pockets, but also have refreshments for the tourists, all with views of the sea and the occasional retired actress walking her well-scented dog on heels.

Cannes - the festival never ends

We continued to Cannes, the city that lives in a perpetual festival. It is the place where the red carpet is not a metaphor, but an infrastructure. With a population of only 70,000 inhabitants, Cannes manages to gather more gala dresses and luxury cars in a few weeks than all of Paris does in a year. The streets are impeccable, the shop windows are dazzling, and the menus are at least amusing: a lobster soup that costs the equivalent of an average pension in Romania comes "portioned" as if for a tasting, on the border between fasting and weight loss. Here, the crisis is more a matter of direction: it plays well, but you don't feel it.

Monaco - the jewel-state

Then, we crossed the symbolic border into Monaco, the principality that wants to be a state but seems like a permanent VIP lounge. The first thing we did was turn off our mobile data, so as not to multiply our phone bill by 100, because of some photos sent without control to the homeland. With an area of only 2 square kilometers and an enviable density of millionaires/billionaires, Monaco is probably the only place in the world where a 40 square meter apartment costs as much as an entire village in Eastern Europe. A state without income tax, Monaco attracts everything that global capital with a touch of luxury means: Formula 1 drivers, Russian tycoons, evading artists, and, of course, tourists like me - come to see what "beyond the crisis” means. The only local problem is maintaining the balance between millionaires and billionaires.

Monte Carlo - the casino of life

We ended our trip in Monte Carlo, a name synonymous with the casino, adrenaline and extravagance. In front of the Casino, the parking lot is an exhibition of cars and people, and the sidewalks - a walkway of those who have not forgotten how to be rich theatrically. Even without money, you can visit the casino lobby. You enter through one door and exit through another as poor or rich as when you entered. If you want to gamble, that's another discussion, in which I did not participate. Here, money has no value, but creates a spectacle. The crisis? Maybe it exists, but it is kept at a distance, with bodyguards and reserved boxes. It's a place where time is measured in roulette rounds and the crisis is just news about someone else, from another world.

On this broken line of luxury, each city seems to be an answer to the same question: "What would life be like if money really didn't matter? Expensive. Very expensive. But peaceful." Here you pass through, but not without money. Here you stay, but with an enormous amount of money. If you're lucky, you'll be left with a memory, a photo, a story and a strange taste of champagne on your lips - the bittersweet taste of a world that, crisis or not, seems to move on, on 10-inch heels and hydraulic suspensions.

Lest I forget, the invitation came from Hello Holidays (a circuit with Hello Premium Tours).