Monaco

Tourist Information and Travel Guide

ABOVE: Aerial view of the Principality, looking toward Monte Carlo. INSET BELOW: Changing of the palace guard.

Monaco has the image of a fairy-tale principality where aristocrats play baccarat and chemin-de-fer in the Casino, throw glamorous parties on the decks of their yachts, and sip Cognac in the bar of the Hermitage or the Hôtel de Paris. And it's all true, except for the fairy tales and aristocrats. Today's yacht owners are more likely to be tax-dodging millionaires from the world of industry and high finance than deposed kings, and the crowd at the Casino on any given night may include corporate incentive groups or insurance brokers from the Monte Carlo Convention Center. As for the fairy tales, they're mostly spun by the tabloid writers who chronicle the exploits of Prince Rainier's children.

Still, Monaco is worth visiting if you're headed for the Côte d'Azur--providing you have enough money to feel welcome in this country clubbers' paradise.

The biggest little country in Europe

Monaco is tiny: just 430 acres, or less than a square mile in size. Only 5,070 of its 29,972 residents are Monégasque citizens; the rest are French, Italian, and other foreigners who have come to Monaco for sun, fun, and tax breaks.

Although banking and industry are important to the local economy, tourism has been the most obvious source of foreign exchange since Prince Charles III gave an exclusive charter to the "Sea Bathing and Circle of Foreigners Company" in 1863. The construction of a railway line from Nice, a casino, an opera house, and expensive villas on the plateau of the Spélugues (renamed "Monte Carlo" in honor of the prince) turned a pint-sized Mediterranean backwater into a mecca for the idle rich.

Today, the Monte Carlo Congress Center and Auditorium may be as important to the economy as the Casino, although the latter remains the principality's symbolic and spiritual center. Some 1,400 hotel rooms are within 200 meters of the convention center, and visitors collectively spend nearly 200,000 nights in the principality's hotels every year--more than five times the number of sleepovers 30 years ago.

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