The Principality of Monaco

What I most like explaining about Monaco is that it is not a Riviera town with a casino attached. It is a country, with a prince, a Constitution, a flag, its own stamps and a guard that relieves the sentries outside the Palace at the same minute every day, and all of it fits into 2.08 km². This page gathers everything I have written about the Principality, laid out the way I would organise it if I were going tomorrow.

The warning I would give before any other. Monaco uses the euro, but it is not part of the EU’s regulated roaming area, and after Brexit British networks decide their own European charges in any case. The principality has its own mobile network, and your phone can switch to it on the train from Nice before you have even arrived. Check your tariff before you leave; I go through what to look for in my guide to mobile roaming in Monaco.

A country you can walk across before lunch

Monaco measures 3,344 metres at its longest and 1,140 at its widest, and its entire land border, 5,469 metres, is shared with four French towns. There is no customs post or fixed passport check coming in from France. You drive along the coast road or step off the train and you are simply inside. Where each boundary runs, and why the country is a thin strip pinned between the mountains and the sea, you can see on the map of Monaco.

Inside there are districts rather than towns. The tourist board counts eight, and I find four enough to plan a visit around. Monaco-Ville, known as the Rock, is the old town on its headland, with the Palace and the cathedral. Monte-Carlo is the district of the Casino and the Belle Époque hotels. La Condamine wraps around the harbour and the market, the closest thing to an everyday neighbourhood. Fontvieille was reclaimed from the sea in the 1960s and 70s and holds the smaller marina and Princess Grace’s rose garden. Between them the gradients are serious, which is why Monaco is full of free public lifts and escalators that spare you most of the climb.

Where I would begin

On a first trip, the first page I would open is my things to do in Monaco ranking, which covers sixteen places, each with a score, a price and the time I would give it. At the top sits the Oceanographic Museum, which Albert I opened on the clifftop in 1910 and Jacques-Yves Cousteau ran from 1957 to 1988. Its shark lagoon holds 450,000 litres of seawater, and its roof terrace is the highest point on the Rock.

A few minutes’ walk away stands the Prince’s Palace of Monaco, built from 1215 onwards on a Genoese fortress. In 2026 its state rooms are open from 30 March to 15 October, and I like to pair them with the changing of the guard, which is free and takes place in the square at 11:55 every day of the year. On the same headland is Monaco Cathedral, where Rainier III married Grace Kelly in 1956 and where both are now buried.

Monte-Carlo is another world, and the building that explains it is the Casino. You can visit the Monte-Carlo Casino without gambling from 10:00 to 13:00, for €20 with an audio guide and no dress code, or from 14:00 to play, if you are 18 or over and carry your original passport. Around it lie the square, redesigned in 2020, the gardens and, down by the sea, the Japanese Garden, which charges nothing. If plants are your thing, the Exotic Garden reopened at the end of March 2026 following nearly six years of building work, and its cave of stalactites is included on the combined ticket.

One day, two days or a day trip over the border

A well-planned day covers the essentials, and my one-day Monaco itinerary sets it out by the hour, timed around the Palace opening, the 11:55 guard and the Oceanographic’s hours. Two days change the pace completely, because one morning can go on leaving the country. In my two-day Monaco itinerary the second day starts in Èze, 9 km away, and comes back for the harbour, the Prince’s cars and the Casino after dark. The other villages I would visit from here, Villefranche, Menton, Roquebrune and La Turbie, are in my day trips from Monaco.

To choose your dates, look first at the best time to visit Monaco, because the calendar matters more than the weather. On Grand Prix weekend the Palace, the Oceanographic and the Car Collection all close, and the Palace keeps its rooms shut in winter. The dates that can reshape a trip across the rest of the year are in my guide to events in Monaco.

Where is Monaco’s airport?

In France. Monaco has no airport of its own, and it relies on Nice Côte d’Azur, across the border, about 30 km by road. From the UK the usual plan is to fly to Nice and carry on overland, which I cover in flights to Monaco, and every other combination, including the train from Paris, is in getting to Monaco. I compare the final stretch in Nice to Monaco. I would take the train from central Nice, which takes 23 minutes, and the express bus 80 if I landed with suitcases.

Once you are there, you walk. For the climbs there are town buses at €2 a ticket, or €1.50 if you tap a card, a boat bus that crosses the harbour and taxis charging a flat €18 anywhere inside the country, all explained in getting around Monaco. If you drive, the first hour is free in almost every public car park, and hourly prices are in parking in Monaco. And if you arrive on a cruise ship, your port call has its own guide in Monaco by cruise.

Engines, rackets and yachts

Monaco lives on motor racing, and Formula 1 is only one strand of it. The Monaco Grand Prix of 2027 runs from 4 to 6 June, introduces a Sprint format, and the cheapest Sunday ticket is standing room on the Rock at €200. If the dates do not suit you, you can walk the Monaco circuit on any other day, since it is made of public streets, tunnel, Fairmont hairpin and Rascasse included. The cars with a story are kept in the Prince’s Car Collection, which moved to the harbour in July 2022 and is no longer in Fontvieille.

The Monte-Carlo Masters is the odd one out, because the club where it is played is in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in France. In September Port Hercule, with 760 berths, fills with superyachts for the Monaco Yacht Show, held from 23 to 26 September in 2026.

Paying, sleeping and eating without nasty surprises

You pay in euros in Monaco. Monegasque coins are legal tender across the eurozone, and the commemorative €2 pieces have come out almost every year since 2015 in runs of 10,000 to 25,000, which I cover in Monaco euro coins. The day-to-day side, from VAT to the tax refund that UK residents can now claim as non-EU visitors, is in money in Monaco.

For a bed, IMSEE counted 13 classified hotels in 2025, with 2,460 rooms in all. I compare what there is inside and the alternatives just over the border in where to stay in Monaco. For food, the 2026 Michelin Guide gives stars to nine restaurants in the principality, but I would start with a barbagiuan, the fried pastry of rice and chard that Atout France recommends trying at least once. It is in my guide to Monegasque food, and the tables I recommend, from cheap to splurge, are in where to eat in Monaco.

I think it is a mistake to assume Monaco can only be enjoyed with a fat wallet. The guard, the cathedral, the Japanese Garden and Larvotto beach are all free, and I have put them together in free and cheap Monaco. At the other end, where I would happily spend more, from the helicopter out of Nice to a three-star lunch, is in luxury experiences in Monaco. The traps, and there are a few even though the streets are safe, are in Monaco scams and safety. The UK government’s own line is that street crime is rare, though it notes thefts on trains to and from Monaco.

Is Monaco a country or part of France?

A country, and hardly a new one. The Grimaldis took the Rock on the night of 8 January 1297, when François Grimaldi, dressed as a Franciscan friar, captured the fortress from the Genoese. That is why the coat of arms shows two friars with raised swords. In 1861 the principality lost 90% of its territory when it gave up Menton and Roquebrune, and out of that crisis came Monte-Carlo, named after Charles III in 1866 and built on sea bathing and gambling. The whole story is in my history of Monaco, and the questions over whether Monaco is a country, what its capital is and where France fits in have their own page.

Today Albert II reigns, the son of Rainier III and Grace Kelly, and the heir is his son Jacques, born in 2014 alongside his twin sister Gabriella. Who is who in the Grimaldi family, and where you might see them, I explain separately, as I do the Grace Kelly trail in Monaco. The flag of Monaco is red over white, the colours of the Grimaldi arms, and Charles III fixed it in 1881. And if you enjoy odd details, such as only 24% of residents being Monegasque, they are collected in my Monaco facts.

What is no longer where many guides say

Monaco changes quickly, and some guidebooks have not caught up. The Fontvieille zoo is closed. The Condamine market is trading from kiosks on the Place d’Armes while its hall is refurbished, from 15 January 2026 until early 2027. Villa Sauber, one of the two homes of the New National Museum, is closed for works, and Villa Paloma is the one that opens; both are in Monaco’s museums. At the Oceanographic, the Mediterranean aquarium is being renovated and the rest of the museum stays open.

Two names also trip people up. The Monte-Carlo Beach, the Société des Bains de Mer’s hotel and beach club, is in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in France, so the public beach I would look for inside the country is Larvotto, covered in Monaco beaches. And of the casinos you see listed, the Société des Bains de Mer today advertises just two, the Monte-Carlo Casino and the one at the Café de Paris. For after dark, Jimmy’z and the rest are in Monaco nightlife. Travelling with children, what does open for them is in Monaco with kids, and if you would rather be shown round, see my Monaco tours.