Monaco's public lifts, district by district, and the ones I'd use

In Monaco the distances are short and the hills are long. There’s a serious drop between the harbour and the Casino, and another between the station and the Rock. The Principality deals with it through a public network of lifts, escalators and travelators that plenty of visitors never use because they don’t know where they are. This page is the list I’d have liked to have, district by district, with the ones I’d use first.

How many there are and where this list comes from

According to Monaco’s government there are 79 lifts open to the public, along with 35 escalators and 8 travelators, and its leaflet claims they let you walk the whole Principality in less than an hour. They all appear in an official leaflet, Monaco Malin, which splits the country into eight areas, from Jardin Exotique to La Rousse, and also marks bus stops and electric bike stations. The bikes themselves are covered in MonaBike, Monaco’s e-bikes.

I’ve copied the names exactly as they appear in the October 2019 edition, because that’s what you’ll see on the signs. The leaflet has two limits worth knowing. It gives no opening hours and doesn’t say whether any of them costs anything, and it doesn’t say which lifts take a wheelchair. For buses, the boat across the harbour and taxis, see getting around Monaco.

How do you get up to the Rock without the climb?

The Rock is where a lift is most welcome. Monaco Malin marks one from Chemin des Pêcheurs to Avenue Saint-Martin and an escalator up from the Parking des Pêcheurs to the same avenue. The Oceanographic Museum backs this up in its own way, saying you reach its main entrance from that car park by lifts and escalators. If you’re driving, and a UK-registered car can’t go up onto the Rock, this is the natural way in.

From Place d’Armes the leaflet shows no lift up to the Rock, but the Rampe Major climbs to Palace Square in about 10 minutes, according to the Palace’s own website. I’d walk up that way in the morning and come down on the Pêcheurs side. The whole district, with its pedestrian lanes, is in Monaco-Ville.

Monte-Carlo, the district with the most lifts

Monte-Carlo has the most links in the leaflet, ten lifts and two escalators. The one I’d use most is Boulevard Louis II to the Casino terraces, which gets you up to the Casino area from the lower part of the district without tackling a slope. With that one and the Avenue des Spélugues to Avenue de Grande Bretagne lift, you can get around the upper part of the district without breaking a sweat.

Further east, the lift from Place des Moulins to Avenue Princesse Grace drops from the shopping boulevard to the seafront avenue, home to the Grimaldi Forum and the beach. It’s the route I’d take to finish the afternoon in Larvotto. And for getting to and from the station on this side, there’s a lift and an escalator from the station to Boulevard de Suisse.

The station, La Condamine and Moneghetti

The station is underground, between La Condamine and Moneghetti, and the leaflet gives it several links. As well as the lift to Boulevard de Suisse, there’s one from Boulevard de Belgique and Square Lamarck, one from the station to Pont Sainte-Dévote towards Beausoleil, an escalator from Place Sainte-Dévote and a travelator from Allée Lazare Sauvaigo. What’s on the other side of each door is in Monaco train station.

La Condamine, between the harbour and the market, has eight lifts in the leaflet. For visitors I’d single out Boulevard Albert Ier to Place d’Armes, Rue Grimaldi to Place des Bougainvilliers and Rue Princesse Florestine to Rue de Millo. The rest of the district is covered in La Condamine.

The high ground and Fontvieille

Up in the Jardin Exotique area there are six lifts. The one in this page’s photo links Boulevard de Belgique with Boulevard du Jardin Exotique, and it’s the one I’d use to reach the Exotic Garden or the Villa Paloma, at number 56 on that boulevard. From the Rock, bus 2 does the big climb and the lifts finish the job.

Fontvieille, which is flat because it was reclaimed from the sea, hardly needs help. The leaflet marks two lifts and two escalators around its shopping centre, linking it with Place du Canton and Promenade Honoré II, towards the Rock.

What the leaflet doesn’t tell you

I haven’t found an official source for the lifts’ opening hours, for whether any of them charge, or for which ones fit a wheelchair. Local guides say they’re free, which is what you’d expect, but I won’t turn that into a fact. In the small hours I’d assume some are shut. If you’re travelling with a wheelchair or a pushchair, what each attraction publishes is gathered in accessible travel in Monaco.