Why, yes, he said, all the hotels in Monaco were better than this one

Evelyn Waugh, When the Going Was Good. An account of travels between 1929-1935, destinations including Brazil, South Africa, British Guiana, the Mediterranean and Abyssinia. Not only a different era but almost a different world.

The station at Monaco is very small and unpretending. The only porter I could find belonged to an hotel with a fairly reputable-sounding name. He took my suitcase and led me through the falling snow, down the hill to his hotel. It was a pension in a side street. There was a small lounge full of basket chairs in which elderly Englishwomen sat sewing. I asked the porter whether there was not a better hotel at Monaco. Why, yes, he said, all the hotels in Monaco were better than this one. So he picked up my suitcase again and we went out into the snow, pursued by a manageress, and soon reached a larger hotel facing the harbour.