The most famous gaming room on earth, opened in 1863 to save the Grimaldis from bankruptcy — and successful enough that Monegasque citizens have paid no income tax since. Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera, designed the concert hall attached to it.
By 1860 Monaco had lost Menton and Roquebrune, and with them most of its territory and revenue. Prince Charles III granted a fifty-year gambling monopoly to a new company — the Société des Bains de Mer — and told it to build a casino on an empty plateau across the harbour. The gamble worked so completely that the quarter built around it, Monte-Carlo, made income tax unnecessary for Monegasque citizens, which remains true today.
The building grew in stages. Charles Garnier, fresh from the Paris Opera, added the Salle Garnier concert hall in 1878; the Salle Blanche and the Salle Médecin followed. The interiors are genuinely worth seeing on their own terms — gilt, frescoes, art nouveau glass — and there is a morning visiting slot for exactly that, when you can walk the rooms without playing.
One quirk: Monegasque citizens are barred from gambling here. It has always been a machine for taking money from visitors, and it has never pretended otherwise.
| Minimum age | 18, with photo ID |
|---|---|
| Dress code | No shorts, sportswear or bare shoulders; jacket and tie in the salons privés after 8pm |
| Best for | The interiors — book a morning visit rather than an evening at the tables |
Everything in Monaco is within a twenty-minute walk, but the country climbs from sea level to about 160 metres — use the network of roughly 80 free public lifts and escalators rather than the streets. Buses 1, 2 and 6 cover the whole Principality for a couple of euros. Full detail in the Monaco travel guide, and transfers from Nice airport in getting to Monaco.
A prince, a cliff and Jacques Cousteau
Better than almost any aquarium, because it was never meant to be one. Prince Albert I built it into the cliff face in 1910 as a serious research institution, and Jacques Cousteau ran it for thirty years.
Taken by a monk with a sword, 1297
A working royal residence on the site of a Genoese fortress. François Grimaldi took it in 1297 disguised as a Franciscan monk — which is why two sword-carrying monks still stand on the Monegasque coat of arms.
A racetrack for one week a year
Run on public roads since 1929 and barely changed since: 3.3 kilometres of ordinary streets barriered off each May, including the slowest corner in Formula 1 and a tunnel taken at 280 km/h.
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