Embarrassment of riches ... the cliff-top Prince's Palace.Credit: iStock
On the eve of another royal wedding, Anthony Dennis discovers the principality's winding roads and super yachts.
It's the other royal wedding of the year. Three months after the marriage of Britain's Prince William to Kate Middleton, Prince Albert II, the monarch of Monaco, will marry Charlene Wittstock, a former champion South African swimmer. It means the blue bloods William and Albert will both be married to commoners, though there's nothing common about Monaco.
A speck of bling attached to the nether regions of France, Monaco, defying the economic downturn across the rest of Europe, continues to punch above its leaden weight in jewellery, fur coats, private jets and super yachts.
The most elegant and swiftest way to arrive in the principality is by helicopter from the nearby Aeroport Nice Cote d'Azur across the border. For others, such as me, the mode of arrival is a perfectly adequate, though graffiti-scarred, commuter train from Nice on the line that extends across the Riviera.
Fortunately for Monaco, a city state that takes its looks seriously, my despoiled train slips unseen into the principality's modern underground railway station and then away to Ventimiglia in Italy, on the border with France.
I'm staying at the posh 141-room Hotel Metropole, opened by the Monte-Carlo Hotel Company in 1886. It features two excellent Joel Robuchon restaurants, a new upmarket Japanese eatery and one of Monaco's most sophisticated lobby bars in a superb location right in the middle of the principality, just a few steps from the fabled 19th century casino.
This is the traditional heart of Monaco, the epicentre of the elite, where the palatial Hotel de Paris vies for attention with the Hotel Metropole. Though the streets of Monaco may not be literally paved with gold, most of the footpaths are lined with red carpets.
It's an even smaller place than I expect. Despite its independence, Monaco is inevitably lumped into French travel guidebooks. It's said that you can walk across the principality in 45 minutes, though the guides tend not to mention the succession of steep hills.
Monaco is also known as The Rock for its unrivalled, glorious precipitous mountainside setting overlooking the Mediterranean.
The national bus service traverses what must surely be some of the shortest, steepest series of routes in the world. The buses mainly convey tourists and the tens of thousands of day workers who stream in from France to work in the hospitality and retail sectors and to wait on the whims of the wealthy.
Everything is so immaculately maintained in Monaco, so perfectly well ordered, that it feels like a continental Singapore, another affluent - though distant - city state. Monaco's streets are spotless and peaceful, monitored by a large number of closed-circuit television cameras watching for any hint of trouble. There is scarcely any street advertising and what does exist is mostly for super yacht insurance brokers. I stroll along one of those red carpets by one shop that specialises in private jet sales with a cutaway model of a lavishly customised Airbus Corporate Jetliner in the window.
For a city that has built its economy on tourism and as a tax haven, the major event this year is the lavish royal wedding of the monarch, Prince Albert II, over two days, on July 1 and 2. It will be the first time the Mediterranean principality has celebrated the marriage of a ruling prince since 1956, when the father of Prince Albert II, Prince Rainier III, created a sensation by marrying Hollywood starlet Grace Kelly.
Despite his alleged playboy past, Prince Albert II, who turned 53 in March, is widely revered by the Monegasques. Photographs of him, and of his wife-to-be, can be found in prominent places of most shops and offices.
In the lead-up to the wedding, however, life in Monaco goes on as normal, or as abnormal, depending on your perspective. It may be one of the last places in the Western world where it's acceptable for women, en masse, to wear fur coats, which is more or less the national dress. It's also surely the world's most exclusive nursing home, with one of the highest average life expectancies of any country or principality.
Curiously, Monaco doesn't appear as pretentious as I'd expected, though perhaps it's the effect of the quieter winter season. In fact, everyone I meet is perfectly warm and welcoming. Prince Albert's fiancee ruffled some local ostrich feathers when she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in London last year that she had found it hard to penetrate Monaco's high societies. Yet Monaco can't afford to make outsiders uncomfortable since it has become increasingly dependent on tourism for its prosperity.
Despite the prevalence of fur coats, Monaco is not as formal as I imagined, either. One night I attend Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo's somewhat avant-garde interpretation of La Belle, based on the tale of Sleeping Beauty, at the modern Grimaldi Forum theatre. I'm overdressed, among only a few wearing a suit and tie.
The formal gear will certainly be brushed and readied for the royal wedding, however. The religious ceremony will take place in the Courtyard of Honour at the Prince's Palace in front of 4000 official guests. The reception, or official dinner, will be staged in the Oceanographic Museum, which used to be run by Jacques Cousteau. The newlyweds plan to make a tour of the principality with multiple television screens erected to allow Monaco's residents and visitors to see the procession.
Monaco's royal heritage continues to underpin its appeal as a destination. There are ubiquitous reminders of Albert's mother, Princess Grace, who died in 1982 at just 52 when her car plunged off a mountainside after she suffered a stroke. There are black-and-white photographs on outdoor plaques dotted across the principality, detailing key moments in her life, as part of a self-guided walking tour.
Each day, promptly at 11.55am, crowds gather to watch the changing of the guard at the gates of the Prince's Palace, where Princess Grace once resided. With the assembled French-trained guards in sky-blue pith-style helmets, black jackets and blue and red-striped trousers, it reminds me of The Mouse That Roared, the 1959 Hollywood film about the fictional Duchy of Grand Fenwick's declaration of war on the US with the intention of losing and seeking foreign aid from the victor.
Though Monaco is never likely to be hard-pressed for wealth, it isn't complacent about its status as a tourist destination. It's even attempting to attract more price-sensitive tourists with a Novotel in the middle of town, though the hotel is discreet and attractive enough not to scare the heiresses.
Monaco is also eager to entice more culture vultures, too. There is no army to fund, save for the honour guard at the palace, and the principality invests 5 per cent of its budget of nearly $US1 billion ($933,960,000) in the arts. The New National Museum of Monaco, established in two stages in 2009 and 2010, is an antidote to the principality's more glitzy attractions. The museum is spread across two of Monaco's most delightful buildings: the Belle Epoque Villa Sauber and the World War I-era Villa Paloma.
On my last night, I stroll along the waterfront, past row upon row of gleaming super yachts the size of apartment blocks and past the venue of the spectacular formula one grand prix. Monaco is unreal, in every sense of the word.
Anthony Dennis travelled courtesy of the Monaco Government Tourist and Convention Authority and Singapore Airlines.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Singapore Airlines has a fare for about $2020 low-season return from Melbourne and Sydney including tax. This involves a flight to Singapore (about 8hr), where you change aircraft for Paris (14hr). Air France has several flights daily from Paris to Nice (the nearest airport to Monaco) for about $90 one way, including tax. There are a variety of ways to reach Monaco from Nice. Helicopter transfers to Monaco, taking seven minutes, are about €105 ($140). See heliairmonaco.com.
French trains service the short route between the main stations at Nice and Monaco for a one-way fare of about €5. Taxis charge about €80 from the airport to Monaco.
The TGV high-speed rail connects Paris with Nice (about 6½hr). Fares from about €78. See raileurope.com.au.
Staying there
The five-star Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo has rooms from €370. At Avenue de la Madone, Monaco. Phone +377 9315 1515, see metropole.com.
There is a list of hotels at various price levels at the Monaco Government Tourist & Convention Authority's website, see visitmonaco.com.
Things to do
The Oceanographic Museum is a Monaco institution. The popular museum, located in an elegant 1910 building, was founded by Albert I, the great-grandfather of the reigning prince. The aquarium has 90 tanks and the museum stages regular exhibitions. At Avenue St Martin. Phone +377 9315 3600, see www.oceano.mc.
The New National Museum of Monaco is divided into two properties: Villa Sauber is devoted to the theme of art and performance, as pursued through Monaco's opera, while the smaller Villa Paloma is focused on "art and territory", with an emphasis on modern art. Villa Sauber, 17 Avenue Princesse Grace. Phone +377 9898 9126; Villa Paloma, 56 Boulevard du Jardin Exotique. Phone +377 9898 4860, see nmnm.mc.
The Grace Kelly walking tour is a 5.6-kilometre self-guided tour across Monaco, taking in key landmarks relating to aspects of Princess Grace's life with 25 information panels creating a history of her time in the principality. See visitmonaco.com.
Explore the Old Town through the narrow laneways dating from the Middle Ages.
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