Hello Monaco #14 Spring 2022 | Page 90

MONACO NEIGHBOURHOOD

In fact , you can do worse than take one of the prettiest and most popular walks at the border of Monaco starting at the beach at Plage Marquet . That coastal pathway meanders from Monaco and envelops Cap d ’ Ail sprouting onto the beautiful cove Plage de La Mala , a popular summertime destination .

Read more about that walk after we tell you here about the Villas , many of them on this walk , and the larger than life personages like Greta Garbo , Winston Churchill and Russia ’ s Imperial family who inhabited them . https :// www . alamy . com /
Greta Garbo
THE ROCK

Let ’ s start with passion and scandal and an unusual ritual that was performed on a Villa off that coastal path .

Valentina and Garbo , were both vying for the attention of Valentina ’ s husband George Schlee .
Valentina ’ s passion and emotions were already pushed to the limit , closeted in the same building in New York with her husband ’ s “ consort ” and icon Greta Garbo . Both femme fatales arranged their schedules never to meet in the lobby in New York .
Villa The Rock
But Valentina could not get away from Garbo in the surrounds of Monaco and Cap d ’ Ail where George Schlee would vacation in his Villa accompanied by both Greta Garbo and his wife . Such were the fiery passions and resentments aroused by the “ Villa Rock ” off the coastal path that joins Cap d ’ Ail to Monaco that Valentina , who considered Garbo a “ witch ” even had the spirit of her husband exorcised from the Villa when he eventually disappeared from her life in the 1960 ’ s .
It was around 1910 that a Mr . Pisani had had the rectangular villa built on the rocky promontory washed by the sea , at the tip of the sea-side path , with an iron and marble staircase . It was later in 1939 , when George Schlee , an American of Russian origin fell in love with it …. later to be doubly seduced by Garbo . Schlee was a theatre producer , husband to the famous Ukrainian designer Valentina Nicolaïevna Sanina …. nicknamed “ Valentina ”. She dressed the
88 / Hello Monaco Spring 2022 www .. hellomonaco .. com