Villa Paloma, contemporary art in a hillside villa above Monaco

Plenty of guides still send you to Monaco’s New National Museum on Avenue Princesse Grace, and anyone who follows them finds a villa wrapped in hoardings. The branch that’s open is at the other end of the country, up the hill on Boulevard du Jardin Exotique. It’s Villa Paloma, an early 20th-century house with a terraced garden, and for me it’s the best pairing of art and view in Monaco. Here’s how to make the most of it.

The villa the state bought for art

Villa Paloma was a private home for many years. The Monegasque state bought it in 1995 and opened it in 2010 as the New National Museum’s second venue, devoted to temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. VisitMonaco dates its construction to 1913; the museum says early 20th century, without a year.

Inside it still feels like a period house. There’s stained glass by the local artist Fassi Cadet, original cornices, columns and mosaics, and a grand staircase with Art Nouveau touches that’s as rewarding as anything on the walls. The exhibition space covers three floors and 520 m², which isn’t much, and I see that as a plus. You can take it all in within an hour without flagging.

Joan Miró, Tom Wesselmann, Gilbert & George, Duane Hanson and Erik Boulatov are among the names shown here over the years. It’s not a museum with a permanent collection you can tick off; every exhibition is a new visit.

What’s on at Villa Paloma right now?

From 3 July 2026 to 3 January 2027, the whole villa is given over to the Surrealist Victor Brauner, born in 1903 and died in 1966. The show, curated by Camille Morando, reveals for the first time a Monaco-based private collection spanning his entire career from the 1920s to the 1960s, more than 160 pieces of painting, drawing and sculpture. Alongside them are ten non-Western objects Brauner collected himself, on loan from the modern art museum in Saint-Étienne.

If Surrealism is your thing, I wouldn’t let this one pass, because private collections rarely go on show together twice. If it isn’t, go up for the garden and the view anyway, and decide once you’re there.

Prices, hours and the Sunday trick

Entry costs €6, or €4 in groups of 15 or more. What makes it special is the list of free entries. Nobody pays on Sundays, and on any day it’s free for under-26s, students, Monegasque citizens, jobseekers with proof and disabled visitors. For plenty of people the visit costs nothing at all. I’ve gathered more of the same in Monaco on a budget.

It opens every day while an exhibition is on, 10:00 to 18:00, and 11:00 to 19:00 in July and August, with last admission half an hour before closing. Watch the calendar, though, because it shuts between exhibitions and on 1 January, 1 May, 19 November, 25 December and the four Grand Prix days. Walk-in guided tours run on Saturday at 11:00 and Sunday at 15:00, last 45 minutes and cost €6 on top of entry and free for under-13s. No pets are allowed in the museum or the garden, except assistance dogs.

The garden, the other half of the visit

The gardens were laid out by Octave Godard, whom the museum calls the most gifted student of the landscape designer Édouard André, the man behind the Casino Gardens. They’re classical in style, terraced, with centuries-old cypresses, flower beds and views over Monaco and the sea. VisitMonaco includes them among the country’s top photo spots, and you can see why. I compare them with other high points in my Monaco viewpoints.

One thing I couldn’t pin down is if you can walk the garden without a museum ticket. The museum’s own rules treat museum and garden as one site, so I’d budget for entry, or go on a Sunday. On the garden level there’s also “La Table des Matières”, a digital reading space featuring the work of the month, free to use during opening hours.

Getting there, and what to pair it with

By bus, lines 2 and 3 stop at “Villa Paloma”. From the station, the museum suggests line 2 towards Jardin Exotique, or line 5 towards Hôpital as far as “Parc Princesse Antoinette” and a public lift. Drivers are pointed to the L’Engelin and Jardin Exotique car parks. On foot from the train, the way up crosses the Les Moneghetti district, which I’d treat as a corridor. Other options are in getting around Monaco.

My plan would be to head up on a Sunday morning to the Exotic Garden in Monaco, on the same boulevard, and go into Villa Paloma afterwards. If there’s time, the Botanical Centre is free with more than 10,500 plants, and Princess Antoinette Park is the perfect stop if you’ve got children in tow. To see how it stacks up against the country’s other museums, I’ve ranked them in Monaco’s museums.