Monaco Discovery Guide

Monaco is two square kilometres of sovereign state on the Côte d’Azur, and almost everything about it follows from that: the most densely populated country on earth, built upward and, latterly, outward into the sea.

The set pieces are famous and genuinely worth seeing. The Casino de Monte-Carlo, opened in 1863 to save a bankrupt principality, sits in a Belle Époque square with the Hôtel de Paris opposite. The Grand Prix has run on the public streets since 1929, and outside race week you can walk the circuit. The Oceanographic Museum hangs off a cliff above the sea and was directed by Jacques Cousteau for thirty years.

Monaco-Ville, the old town on the rock, is the surprise: narrow lanes, the palace, the cathedral where Grace Kelly is buried, and a changing of the guard at five to noon. It is also, for a country associated entirely with money, free to walk around.

If you have a day

Train in, walk up to Monaco-Ville on the rock for the palace, the cathedral and the Oceanographic Museum, lunch there, then down to the harbour and up the other side to the casino square. That is the principality, and it is walkable.

If you care about the Grand Prix

Outside race week, walk the circuit on foot: the hairpin below the Fairmont, the tunnel, the harbour chicane and the climb to Casino Square. It takes half an hour and makes the television coverage legible ever after.

If you want the gardens

The Jardin Exotique clings to a cliff with succulents from across the world and a cave beneath it. The Japanese Garden by the sea is small, formal and free, and the Princess Grace rose garden is in Fontvieille.

If you want to see the casino

The atrium is open to look at for a small fee, and the gaming rooms require identification, a minimum age of eighteen and reasonable dress. Monaco’s own citizens are not permitted to gamble there, which has been the rule since it opened.

If you want an easy contrast

Menton, with its lemons and gardens, and Italy at Ventimiglia are twenty and thirty minutes away by train.

Monaco is a principality where the ruling family predates almost every state in Europe, and where the people it rules are a minority of the residents.

Monégasques as a minority

Roughly nine thousand nationals among about thirty-nine thousand residents. Nationals get housing priority, do not pay income tax, and — a rule from the casino’s founding — are forbidden from gambling in it. The rest of the population is French, Italian, British and a long list of others.

The Grimaldis

The family has held the rock since 1297, which makes it the longest-ruling dynasty in Europe, and the prince is a genuine head of state rather than a figurehead. The palace, the guard and the national day on 19 November are all taken seriously.

Monégasque

The old language, a Ligurian dialect closer to Genoese than to French, was nearly lost and is now taught compulsorily in schools. Street signs in the old town are bilingual in French and Monégasque.

Order and surveillance

Monaco has one of the highest ratios of police to population anywhere and extensive camera coverage, which is why crime is close to nonexistent and why the atmosphere is noticeably controlled. Residents regard it as the principal benefit of living here.

Monaco is small enough that visitor pressure is concentrated absolutely: the rock, the casino square and the harbour absorb everyone. Going early in the day, and on a weekday, makes a disproportionate difference.

Arrive by train. The station is underground in the centre of the principality, the journey along the coast from Nice takes about twenty-five minutes, and it avoids contributing to traffic in a place with nowhere to put a car. Parking is expensive and limited by design.

The principality has committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 and runs an unusually dense network of public lifts and escalators to move people up and down the cliff — use them rather than a taxi.

The Oceanographic Institute funds genuine marine research and the Prince Albert II Foundation works on Mediterranean conservation; entry fees and donations go somewhere real. The wider point is that a day trip spending nothing leaves nothing, and the museums are the best place to put money if the restaurants are beyond reach.

April to June and September to October are the best months: warm, clear, and either side of the summer crush.

Late May brings the Grand Prix, when the principality is closed off by barriers and grandstands, prices multiply and the population triples. It is extraordinary if you have come for it and an obstruction if you have not — check the date before booking.

July and August are hot, humid and very busy, with the Mediterranean at its warmest and the harbour full of yachts. The fireworks festival runs through both months.

November to March is mild by European standards — rarely below 8°C — quiet, and much cheaper. The Monte-Carlo Rally is in January, the circus festival too, and the Christmas market fills Port Hercule.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the area

Monaco is among the most expensive places in the world, and the standard approach is to sleep in France and visit for the day. Nice, Menton and Ventimiglia are all a short train ride away.