Some of the best rooms with a Monaco view are in France. Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Èze-sur-Mer and Beaulieu are all within fifteen minutes, usually cost less, and give you a garden — at the price of needing a car or the train.
Monaco’s border is about two kilometres long, and crossing it changes the price of a hotel room dramatically. Roquebrune-Cap-Martin begins immediately east of Larvotto; Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Èze are a few minutes west. All are on the same coastal railway, with trains into Monaco-Monte-Carlo every few minutes for a couple of euros.
What you gain is space. The Maybourne Riviera sits on a clifftop above Cap Martin with a 360-degree view that takes in Monaco, Italy and the Alps, and Monte-Carlo Beach — SBM’s 1929 Art Deco beach club — has an Olympic seawater pool and a Michelin-starred organic restaurant. Neither would be physically possible inside the Principality.
What you lose is spontaneity: no walking home from the Casino, and the last train back is earlier than you would like. If your trip is about the sea and the views rather than the gaming rooms, it is an easy trade.
Monaco’s public lifts and escalators — around 80 of them — do most of the climbing between quarters, and they are free. Bus lines 1, 2 and 6 connect the whole country for a couple of euros, and nothing on this site is more than a twenty-minute walk from anything else. Full detail in the Monaco travel guide.
Cliff-top hotel ★★★★★
The most dramatic room with a view on the whole Riviera: a 2021 cliff-top hotel on Cap Martin with Monaco on one side and Italy on the other, ten minutes from the Principality.
Seasonal beach hotel ★★★★★
The 1929 Art Deco beach club just over the French border, run by SBM. An Olympic seawater pool, Elsa’s organic Michelin-starred kitchen, and a summer-only season.
The Casino, the palaces, the postcode
The quarter everyone means when they say Monaco: the Casino, the Opera, the Hôtel de Paris and the Hermitage around one square, with the Jardins des Boulingrins below. Stay here for the address and for being able to walk everywhere worth walking to.
The Rock and the old town
The original Monaco, on a limestone headland 60 metres above the sea — the Prince’s Palace, the cathedral, the Oceanographic Museum and a knot of lanes that empty out completely after the day-trippers leave.
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