monaco grand prix street circuit travel guide - monte carlo .mc
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Where we headed?
Monaco Street Circuit
Venue Physical Address: The streets of downtown Monte Carlo.
Office Address: Auto-Club Monaco B.P.(ACM) 464 23, Boulevard Albert 1er 98012 Monaco
Hotels / Accommodations / Camping nearby
>> FIND 300 + Hotels in / near Monte Carlo Monaco (lodgings within a 60 miles / 100 KM radius of Monte Carlo Monaco - over 300 acccommodations choices budget and luxury to choose from.
NICE HOTELS (10 Miles)
> Find 60+ Nice, France Hotels
CANNES HOTELS (33 Miles)
> Find 10 Cannes / Nimes Hotels
SAN REMO ITALY HOTELS (22 Miles)
> Find 20 San Remo, Italy Hotels
There exists camping by the track too, in the general admission area Secteur Rocher, on the hill under the Prince's castle. But only for small tents, and only if you bring ear plugs as it gets rather noisy at night.
Got Directions to the Circuit?
Like at other European grandprixcities™ it's a good idea to consider a train for day to day travel to the track, which, held in the tiny sea side resort of Monaco, leaves little in the way of parking spots, at least for more than 15-30 minutes at a time. Monaco is big enough to walk around, however note the town is perched on a Cliffside so there can be lots of hills to negotiate. However if you’d rather ride, you can take a chairlift (during non-racing times only) of which there are seven. They travel between the Place des Moulins and the beaches, the Princess Grace Hospital Centre and the Exotic Garden, the harbor and the Avenue de la Costa, Place St. Dévote and the area of Monéghetti , the Terraces of the Casino, the Congress Centre Auditorium and the Boulevard Louis II , the Avenue des Citronniers and the Avenue Grande-Bretagne and between the highway and the Larvotto Boulevard. (This may be outdated, let me know if you know).
Nearest Major Airports:
FIND Hotels near Airports (Monaco and Europe)
Nice Côte d’Azur Airport, (pronounced 'Neece'), is located 13.7 miles 18KMs from Monaco. Helicopter transfer is available from the Airport to the center of Monte Carlo (price approximately 75USD/ 90EUR. Travel time 7 minutes) Which is a good way to see a very pretty part of the world from above. These must be pre-arranged. Ask about this beforehand.
Trains and taxis also make the short trip, and a bus service runs every half hour from the airport to the city of Nice.
Remember too that Monaco is not too far from several major airports in nearby Italy and France so check for a good deal into other iarports, particularly if you arrange accommodation outside of Monaco, in which case you can train it in. See below about NOT planning to drive into Monaco on race weekend. Note though that the Monaco race weekend almost always falls in the European High Summer Season, May through July, when travel and hotel costs surge.
For more info about transit, rental cars, and trains from the airport to downtown, visit to and from the airport
Shop for the cheapest airfare to Nice, Cannes, & San RemoAirports with Travelocity Priceline on my Flights and Car Hire Page . Compare prices by these large hotel/flights/cruise providers and save.
Driving & Parking
Road Advisories:
In Monaco you will drive on the right of the road with left-hand steering. Don’t drive into Monaco during race weekend.
If you drive towards Monaco from anywhere in Europe you should expect tolls along the way too. For example, check out the Italian autostrada tolls website.
If coming from Great Britain: start at the French port of Calais to the Mediterranean coast. Expect to pay around 40-50EUR/35-45USD in tolls. Don’t forget too that it will be spring/summer and the French love their Mediterranean coast on weekends, so apart from race traffic, you’ll be dealing with people going home through both France and Italy from their beach weekends, which can be a major headache on it’s own.
> Main roads leading to Monte Carlo, Monaco
The A8 motorway. exit A8 - RN7 from Nice or Roquebrune going to or coming from Italy. Local communications are provided by three major roads: the Low, the Middle and the Great Corniches.
Access to the city by car is restricted as the track takes up most of the city’s areas and there is little parking at all, particularly for 4 entire days as you walk around the town. Car parks that claim to be free are often only free for the first hour! Many usual parking areas are taken up with grandstands, and roads are closed for racing. And on race weekend rates are extortionate. Remember this isn’t the A1-Ring where there are acres of farms around the track that can provide parking if the already copious track facilities are full (which never happens) Traffic cops are strict and you’ll find if you do drive in, at the end of the weekend it would have been cheaper to rent a hotel room (if you can find one) and train it in than to park your car in local parking lots.
Local Public Transit
There are also 5 permanent return bus routes: Monte-Carlo to Saint Roman, Monte-Carlo to Exotic Garden, Monte-Carlo to Larvotto beaches, Railway station to Fontvieille Hospital, and Larvotto beaches to Fontvieille. See the city map. This is the most convenient way of getting around.
> Main train station? Most people take a train via the Nice station. You won’t be alone on race weekend so follow the crowd. The line is 0911 and the cost is around 5EUR. The main train service provider is Monaco-Monte Carlo (SNCF, the French Train system). Monaco has a recently built underground train system on Blvd Princesse Charlotte, which joins it to nearby Riviera destinations. The French rail system operates trains to/from the Municipality. You can reach the port from the station via public lifts (closed during race times) and the older Station can be reached by moving footwalk.
> Main trains from outside Monaco: Check out > A Eurail Pass
> seaport There is boat service from France departing at St. Jean Cap Ferrat port. Or by Yacht to the 2 harbors in the city, Condamine (Hercule harbor) and Fontvieille, however mooring is almost impossible for the Grand Prix weekend without prior permission and "knowing someone". At the Railway station, Avenue de Monte-Carlo (near Casino) Also Place des Moulins, Avenue de la Costa, Fontvieille (near the marina), Beach Plaza.
Who races there / events?
> Formula 1 World Championship
> FIA GP2 (formerly F3000)
> HIstoric Grand Prix Racers
. Check above links for upcoming event dates
stuff to do
Monte Carlo is the most prestigious Grand Prix on the calendar. There, I said it. Seems every single article/webpage ever written about the race starts out something like that. Located on the European Riviera, not only does this grandprxcity have a history of almost 70 years of top level racing, it is also home (or at least business address) of many of the drivers, who find tax shelter there. It’s the home of not only the Grand Prix, but also of the World Music Awards and the Laureus World Sports Awards, both held in May. One wonders where the prestige comes from though, while being pushed around by the crowds, tired, exhausted, and hot, to see very little of the race and then realize that to really see anything you needed a very large amount of money to sit on someone's balcony and look down while still having to keep one eye on the TV set anyway.
Frankly, it's not my favorite place to see a race, and it's not the best place to enjoy a race weekend. Other times of the year though, spring or fall, it's a lovely little city to stop in on the way to some truly lovely smaller (or at least less self-absorbed) destinations along the mediteranean coast (mostly in the direction of Italy.) But a grandprixcity, for the purpose of this site, is defined by the collection of fans at a high level motoring event, so I'll try to hold my tongue a little and include, for the sake of completion, and for those of you who would like to take the adventure to, this 'most prestigious' of grandprixcities. Pardon me if I poke some fun. It's the way I get when I'm tired, grumpy, and watching good money wasted for very little return. The only real prestige in Monte Carlo belongs to the drivers drivers, who must show more than their usual prowess to negotiate this unforgiving slot car circuit. For the race fan it's enough to consider that, however ridiculous the layout, this is a race that has through the decades defined great drivers.
Although the city streets of Monte Carlo have far outgrown the 800hp monsters that roar around it in usually perfect weather conditions, and there is often talk of removing it from the calendar, the location seems one of the few mainstays in a sport undergoing many changes.
This race is the complete opposite of the homely welcome of the Austrian race that is perhaps forever lost as a Formula One destination. Tents are replaced with Casinos and luxury hotels and views are restricted to a few feet of track. It is an anomaly in modern motor sport and, as such, perhaps for it’s sheer “user unfriendliness” very dear to its fans. Television is the best place to watch the race, so the expense of traveling there, trying to find some kind of reasonably priced accommodation within 100 miles, and the extraordinary price of seats anywhere near adequate seems decadent, but there’s little that isn’t decadent about the principality of Monaco. The second smallest nation in the world, next to the Holy See. The principality is divided into 5 districts - Monaco-Ville which is the old fortified town, the ramparts, the Cathedral and old Harbor area, Condamine, and the reclaimed from the bay 22-hectare area of Fontivieille.
Save your pennies and come at least once. Monaco is a dream left over from the 60s “jet set” that lives on in blissful ignorance of a thousand European revolutions, and long surpassed in style and substance by more sophisticated European cities like Barcelona and Milano. Just for the heck of it, pull on your oversized polo shirt, your khaki shorts, fake suntan, and yachting shoes, light up an expensive cigar, and head into the crowded pretension of the most famous grandprixcity in the world. A place where Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher are next in line to the throne. A real benefit is that after race activities are done for the day the roads are open so you can walk the hallowed track.
You won’t get lost in Monaco - everyone walks, talks, smiles, and pats you on the back exactly the same way in Monte Carlo’s one “ouvert pour le povre” weekend a year - Although it seems lost on the more wealthy locals, visibly put out by the influx, that the cash the great unwashed bring with them during this open house spectacular is what keeps the place “tax free”. One thing for sure, despite the crush of the crowds, the race is better organized than the principality’s 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic bobsledding effort!
Godspeed, Cvetko Ostroznik
Enjoy
Whatever you decide to do inside Monte Carlo, leave plenty of time during a race weekend. PLENTY of time. There are large crowds covering the ½ mile square of city, and quite a few out on the harbor on boats, and everyone will want to see what there is to see since being there for the race is their chance.
The race weekend occurs during the Monaco Festival of the Arts so there’s always street performers doing stuff for the entertainment of throngs of tourists that are standing in lines to get into something. The street track being closed during daylight hours over the weekend means that travel is restricted to walking or the bus (as even the chairlift doesn’t run during race times) so don’t expect too much to do unless your apartment has a pool or a gym. And if you are walking expect plenty of hills, since the town is perched on a cliff. It’s hard to explain but the more popular this place becomes, the less you can get done during a visit there. At most you might use your time to check out places that you’d like to come back and look at when there’s not a race in town. Problem is, we’ve yet to have met anyone who actually went back when there wasn’t a race on. Day excursions to other less packed places seem like a good idea but then you want to be in Monaco during race times. Or simply do your sightseeing in nearby cities of Nice and Cannes, where there are just as many designer stores and places to see, perhaps more.
You can watch local newspapers ahead of time for activities planned for the weekend. Probably the best paper in the region for this kind of thing is The Nice Matin. It's in French but has the "society" pages and also is a source for classified ads for balcony rentals if that interested you on in my introduction.
Eat
Of course Monaco offers great dining. If you can get a table and if you can afford the tab. 130 restaurants in 1.5 square miles means plenty of foie gras gets consumed over the course of the weekend. The Hôtel de Paris, and its Le Louis XV, for example was training ground for apron-ed notables such as Wolfgang Puck and Alain Ducasse and Auguste Escoffier, and still produces run away hits, who seem all too keen to get out of there as soon as they’re popular. Other marvelous places include La Coupole at Hotel Mirabeau, Le Saint0Benoit, the Giacomo, of La Truffe in the Grand Hotel, where everything includes truffles. Nouvelle cuisine is catered for too at any one of the places trying to out-qualify each other for the tourist buck. You’ll eat good if you can get a booking over the weekend. Note: Food prices seem to rise the closer you get to Casino Square, whether you’re looking for Chinese, chili, or even hamburgers Americaine!
Monégasque culture has it’s own cuisine too, a mix of Italian and French influences usually including fish and Swiss cheese and mostly made in pastry. Nothing to write home about.
FOR THOSE ON A BUDGET: Don’t expect to eat cheap anywhere near the track. Snack food available at the track is, as everywhere, overpriced and the lines are long, you’ll pay 10EUR/9USD for a slice of pizza. Bring your lunch in your pack, since to sit down to eat, particularly in a café where there is alcohol, and pretty ordinary food, might prove a shocking financial experience. As might trying to get a cup of coffee somewhere on the waterfront. Choices boil down to a full backpack or an empty wallet. Although there is a supermarket chain called CASINO of which there are two in both Monaco and Nice, where cheaper supplies and picnic necessities are purchasable at relative good value.
Shopping
Store hours:
Lots of it, if you can get into the boutiques, which are closed at strange hours for "special" parties, etc, during a race weekend. This really is there one chance to show how exclusive they are to the masses and being closed "for vip events" when the masses are there is a sure fire way to miss the masses.
Tuesday - Saturday 09h - 12h and 15h - 19h
banking hours
Monday - Friday 08.30h - 12h and 14h - 17.30h
Music
There’s an ampitheathre in the town, which is pretty and sometimes hosts musical events but generally musical entertainment is confined to loud music in bars, such as the famous Tip Top Bar, or “Stars”n”Bars (bookings necessary), or the ever popular Jimmy’z nightclub (plan to do lots of dancing in the line outside during race weekend).
While Monaco doesn't have a ticketmaster type set up. Tickets for all events around town, including at the new Grimaldi stadium, are available by calling 377 92 16 22 99. Call them if you're keen to book into available entertainment over the race weekend. They should know what will be on offer.
Other times of the year, earlier in March, and in December, Monaco hosts the World Music Awards and the Dancing awards. During the weekend acts often appear in the casino, buskers are found on the streets entertaining crowds and there are more than enough dance clubs around if this is what you are after.
Cinema
If you’re really into movies come a week early when nearby Cannes hosts their international film market, always well attended by movie types. Always consult your accountant before considering such a double header. In 2002 on Tuesday before the race Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button of the Renault F1 ™ team appeared at the market. Renault, a major sponsor of the market, where there to promote the race, just in case the Americans busy pushing movies hadn't realized there was a race on the week after.
Culture
Some of the best modern European artists are represented in Monaco, including in its restaurants, where there’s always a story about how x paid for his food with a picture, or something humiliating like that ... good if you’re into trivia, and if you can get into the restaurant to see the painting in the first place, that is they won't take your painting in exchange for the food. Add to this 50 art galleries and you’ll have nice stuff to see, after you’re done looking at the dandruff on the shoulders of the people in front of you in the long lines. Artists are represented in the region by chapels they were commissioned to adorn over the years. In the nearby town of Vence, you can see the astounding Matisse Chapel in a little less crowded circumstances. Or a little further away in Nice you can see the Matisse Musee 164 Avenue des Arènes, Telephone: +33 4 93 81 0808. Also 6 miles/8kms away is Villefranche Sur Mer, where you’ll find the Jean Cocteau Chapel St. Pere and Citadel, Or visit his museum in Menton, 25 miles /45KMs away you’ll find the Picasso Museum at Antibes.. All are accessable via train.
History
The palace of the Prince is built into a rock citadel overlooking the Mediterranean Ocean. Work on creating the palace began in 1597, and it was knocked down and ransacked a few times since, but now safely and serenely houses the royal apartments. These are paved with three million white and colored stones forming immense geometrical figures. You won’t get in during race weekend since it’s only open to the public from June to October, but the old fortress also contains the Napoleonic Museum of Souvenirs and the Archive collection that is open all year. Also, every day, at noon, the palace square is the venue for the ceremony of the changing of the Guard. Lots of marching around. And as expected over the 4 days of the race weekend, lots of tourists standing on tip toes to see the marching.
The Monaco Cathedral, built in 1875, houses the tomb of Grace Kelly, who managed to attain “royalty” on both sides of the Atlantic. The Monaco National Museum contains one of the world’s best collections of mechanical figures and dolls. (go figure?)
Mostly apartment buildings stacked hard up against each other like any other resort in the world. The casino, the Hotel de Paris, and the Royal Palace are the only real stand out attractions for lovers of great buildings. Most everything but the palace fortress only dates back to the Principality’s establishment in the late 1800s so there’s none of the wonder of more established European cities like Florence or Vienna.
Family
Don’t expect to let the kids go for a swim at the beach. There is really very little beach, full despite the number of pools at the various hotels in town. There are many towns along the coast, accessible by the new underground railway where there can be swimming, note though that swimming beaches on the Mediterranean are closed off and, like casinos, require an entry fee. This is usually only a few EUR, and you’ll pay extra for a little table, umbrella, etc. Remember though, it’s only really Spring and might still be a little chilly for dipping.
For other types of aquatic adventure, Monaco hosts an Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium, once directed by Jacques Cousteau, claims to be one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of marine life.
Or you can take the kids for a walk through the Zoological Gardens, any of the wonderful botanical gardens, particularly the Exotic Gardans high above the town, which also includes the subterranean Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology, entrance to which is included in the price of admission to the gardens. Or you might enjoy the pretty Japanese Gardens in the center of the principality and down by the beach, however even they loose their luster when crowded and noisy and surrounded by high rise apartments that block the sun. There is even a Princes Grace rose garden in the new part of town reclaimed from the sea (Fontvieille), and while there, check out the hotel that David Coulthard owns.
Day excursions are available via the underground rail system. A few places you might want to check out is Biot, famous for its colored glass, ceramics and wood carvings. Cap D’Antibes/Juan Les Pins, a resort near by that’s a little less crowded with restaurants, boutiques, and nightclubs, Eze, a middle ages town with magnificent views of the hill towns lining the Riviera, La Turbie, a village set in the mountains bordering the Mediterranean, or Roquebrune/Cap Martin, another medieval village where you’ll find the oldest castle in France.
Casinos?
The Casino Belle-Epoche de Monaco is one of the most famous gaming halls in the world. Expect, here as with many European Casinos to pay an entry fee, and to have to meet a dress code jacket and tie. The usual slot machines are available as are craps tables. High rollers are sometimes invited into the 11 gamblers only private room, where minimum bids are 5,500EUR.
Note that local Monégasques (of which there are 5,000 in Monte Carlo) and the Princely family, are not allowed into the 3 casinos in town, it’s the price they pay for the tax haven they live in that’s funded by proceeds from the joint. Entry to the Casino Cabaret, which occurs every night, was around 40EUR, bookings can be made in advance at 377 92 16 36 36. There other casinos in town are the Sporting Club and the Grand Hotel Casino.
If you are planning to "hit the roulette wheels" remember, you're in Monte Carlo, not Toledo, so while about any jacket and tie will work to get you through the door, if you can wait long enough to get in on race weekend, most of the gentlemen will be poncing around in very very expensive tuxedos with matching blondes. This attitude is very stange, since you gotta figure that if they're at the casino in the first place it means they weren't invited to any of the very exclusive parties held during the weekend. There are layers in this prestige. If that kind of thing makes you sick, head for the hill under the palace, or Nice or any of the other places where people are staying. Who knows you might find a card game. However, if sneaking a sociological peek into the "Austin Powers" 70s throwback playboy Monaco scene is what you really want to do... bonne chance!
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