Monaco On A Budget: A Cheap Day Out From Nice

A couple of months ago (yes, I’m catching up!) we flew out to the south of France for a weekend. Our main objective, however, was not to visit France.

Our main reason for this trip was to visit Monaco. Not only is it a new country for both of us, but we are both really into Formula 1, making it an essential visit! We’ve been meaning to visit for years, but the stars never quite align.

I was very surprised to find that the most affordable flights were either while we were in Japan… or in August. August. In Nice. I expected it was going to be horrendous – both for heat and crowds.

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In actual fact, it didn’t go above 30 degrees (much cooler than the week before), and the crowds weren’t anywhere near as bad as I thought they’d be, despite it even being a weekend. The worst part was actually the train to Monaco in the morning, where we were squished into a train carriage. Luckily it’s a short journey so it was okay!

I’ll be writing a bit about Nice separately, but I wanted to focus on Monaco, as I had a pretty solid plan there and it all went swimmingly. It felt like we were there with a purpose, rather than in Nice where we were just wandering.

Monaco is just 20-30 minutes by train from Nice, making it an ideal day trip. However I found that we didn’t need all that much time there, and we arrived at 11.30am and decided to head back around 3.30pm, meaning we had pretty much exactly four hours there. And this was not rushed at all!

We saw everything we wanted to see, and I think we did it in a pretty good order too, so here’s everything we got up to.

What To Do In Monaco On A Half-Day Trip From Nice

Arriving in Monaco is a little disorientating, as getting out of the station sends you two ways: one down towards the centre of town and the marina, or another towards the high end of town where the Monte Carlo casino is. We decided to start at the top and work our way down, which meant navigating lifts up until we found an exit.

Out in the open, Monaco feels like a different world.

It is, on the surface, simply a playground for the rich and famous. It’s not somewhere I’d have a lot of interest in visiting if it wasn’t for the association with the F1 as one of, if not the most, famous race tracks in the world. It also helps that it’s so easily accessible, and of course the fact it’s a separate country makes it appealing to visit too.

Monte Carlo Casino

Our first stop was the famous Monte Carlo Casino, which was busy with tourists and supercars alike. It’s possible to pay to go into the casino, but as it’s not something we have much interest in as we’d feel way too out of place, we settled for exploring the lobby which is free to enter for the commoners.

The lobby is stunning and well worth a little explore. Note that you have to pay to use the loo – I thought I might as well go while we were in there, but luckily I didn’t really need to so I didn’t bother. I found free public toilets later on – priorities, right?!

Outside, people were cooing over expensive, flashy cars. And you know what, it’s easy to get caught up in it. I don’t think you even need to love cars in order to appreciate them here.

We walked down the road to follow some of the F1 track to our next stop.

This was the biggest part of the appeal of Monaco for us – the chance to walk some of the “track”, seeing as it’s a street race so it’s all public!

You can see our next stop in the above pic – can you guess where?

Fairmont Hairpin

Near the casino is one of the most famous points on the F1 race track: the Fairmont Hairpin. I have to say I was quite surprised by how outdated the hotel looks, but it’s the view the other way that matters. We spent quite a bit of time here watching the cars go by, but this time it was a total mix of regular cars, sports cars, and… buses.

It was particularly amusing when a bus would slow right down for the corner, only to be followed by a Ferrari whose driver was probably gearing up (if you excuse the pun) for this bucket-list driving moment. I think several of them came round a few times! I mean if you were stuck behind a bus doing 5mph, you would, wouldn’t you?

There were also things like this:

And this:

From there, we could have walked down to some Japanese gardens, but we weren’t sure how walkable that route is, so we headed back up to the casino instead and walked down to the marina from there. It does mean we missed the football “Walk Of Fame” style path which Ash would definitely have been interested in seeing, and also the F1 sculpture!

Also it’s worth going around the side of the casino as in my opinion it’s just as beautiful, if not more so – the decorations are stunning!

Port Hercule

Port Hercule is the main marina in Monaco, so it’s unavoidable. It bridges the gap between the hills on either side, with Monte Carlo on one side, and the Old Town on the other.

Yes, Monaco has an old town! More on that below.

The promenade is home to some particularly famous parts of the F1 track like the Rascasse corner, as well as the pit lanes, so we enjoyed walking those.

There’s also a swimming pool! Pretty unique place to go for a swim, actually.

Weirdly it created a couple of my favourite photos of the day!

Posing with the F1 sculpture

At the end of the promenade is a classic F1 sculpture of El Chueco, where you can sit in the car! Obviously had to do it.

There’s also a sculpture at the other end of Port Hercule of William Grover, the winner of the first ever Monaco Grand Prix.

Lunch at La Condamine Market

Okay, so what we MEANT to do was grab lunch from La Condamine Market, an outdoor market with lots of fresh produce but also some food stalls with reasonable takeaway prices. What actually happened was that by the time we decided to go, it was only 15 minutes before closing. So it’s worth noting that it closes earlier on Sundays, at 2pm instead of 3.30pm.

We popped into a Carrefour instead, which was an… experience. I have never seen such a busy mini supermarket, and the scanners to get out are stressful. Not our finest travel moment, but at least it didn’t break the bank.

Monaco Old Town

So yes, Monaco DOES have an old town! While it doesn’t quite have the charm of a lot of European old towns, it’s definitely more quaint than I was expecting from somewhere that is famous for casinos, yachts and fancy hotels.

From the promenade, it’s a steep walk up the side of a cliff to get there. I’m sure there’s an easier way, but it only took me six minutes to get to the top. Apparently there are elevators, but we spent longer trying to figure out where they were than it took me to actually just walk.

Also, there are toilets along the path which are free to use!

Once at the top (and on the way up), there are fantastic views over Port Hercule and the rest of Monaco, and it’s my favourite place for those iconic photos.

The first thing you see if you’re NOT simply taking in the view, is the Prince’s Palace of Monaco, with an expansive square separating it from the rest of the old town streets. I was surprised to find narrow streets snaking through this area that made it seem like any other historic European city! There’s a cathedral and a town hall – not what I picture when I think of Monaco.

To be quite honest though, my little jaunt up to the old town was as much about the views as the architecture, and there was another one I wanted to find.

View over Port Fontvielle

As well as Port Hercule, there’s also another port on the other side of the old town rock. Not only did I find some lovely viewpoints, but the path along this side of the old town is gorgeous. It was a world away from the bustling casinos of Monte Carlo; hardly anyone was here on this path.

Where I thought I’d just take a couple of snaps of the port below, I ended up walking along the entire path to the end of the old town, where I passed the cathedral and walked back through the streets.

I highly recommend this walk if you’re in Monaco!

Bonus: Bateau bus across the port

The only thing we didn’t do from my list was get out on the water, which you can do for surprisingly cheap. It costs just 2€ for a single journey across the bay. To be honest, I wish we’d done this after the old town, as it wouldn’t have taken long to get back to the train station from where it would have dropped us off.

Probably my only regret from the day!

Quick note, as it’s on a lot of other guides: the Jardin Exotique de Monaco was closed while we were there! Otherwise I think we would definitely have visited, as it looks amazing.

Getting a passport stamp in Monaco

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to get your passport stamped in Monaco. You CAN get a stamp from the tourist office, but they are no longer allowed to stamp your actual passport, so they’ll use the stamp on something else instead as a keepsake. It’s not quite the same as the one in San Marino!

I read a lot of mixed information online, including that you can’t get the stamp on Sundays, so I asked at one of the tourist information booths along the waterfront. He said you can get it from the tourist info office near the Monte Carlo Casino, and it is open on Sundays.

I think if it was a proper passport stamp I would have made the effort to go back up to get it, but not for a keepsake on a piece of paper.

Getting to Monaco from Nice

It’s very easy to take the train from Nice to Monaco, however be aware that in the summer the train gets VERY busy. This was the only bad experience we had with crowds, because we got on at Nice Riquier rather than Nice Ville, the main train station. This meant that the train was already full, and we had to sandwich ourselves in like sardines.

I think if the journey had been longer, we would have waited for the next train and hoped it would be quieter, but we figured we could stand for 20 minutes. It ended up being slightly longer, I think purely just because of how many people were getting on and off.

I’d recommend going earlier in the morning, as we had a leisurely breakfast and didn’t get the train until 11am, so it probably was one of the busier times.

What surprised us the most about the trip was just how much we enjoyed Nice. I’d heard mixed things, and our main focus of the trip was Monaco so we didn’t really mind. However, not only did we end up loving Nice itself, but even started planning a trip back there to explore more of the area.

After all, we’d been recommended so many little day trips and stop-offs.

The main one I wanted to do was Eze, on the way back from Monaco. This lovely mountainside village is around half way between Nice and Monaco, so very easy to do, however the downside, literally, is that the train station is at the bottom of the hill and not actually in Eze. While there’s a bus from the train station (#83) these run fairly infrequently, and possibly even less on Sundays.

In the end, we decided it just wasn’t worth risking wasting a couple of hours trying to get there when we already had such limited time. It’s easy enough to get to the village from Nice directly on the bus, so it’s probably better to do as a standalone half-day trip than tacking on to a journey to or from Monaco.

However, it does look beautiful, with stunning views from a botanical garden, and the walk down Nietzsche Path back to the train station looks like a lovely way to enjoy the surrounding scenery.

Instead, I think if you want to add on a stop between Nice and Monaco, somewhere like Villefranche-sur-Mer would be better (a colleague recommended this to me!).

Anyway, Monaco is pretty much what I expected. A playground for the rich and famous, which is easily accessible for us mere peasants. It’s expensive, but doesn’t have to be – we just walked around for four hours and only spent money in a supermarket and one souvenir shop. I got a lot more great photos than I expected, of the contrasting architecture and the marinas full of disgustingly expensive yachts.

It’s a unique place to visit and it’s an essential pilgrimage for F1 fans, so these were the two biggest selling points for me, and it certainly lived up to both.

Stay tuned for a write-up about Nice which was originally going to just be part of this post, but it turns out I had quite a lot to say (as well as photos!) about Monaco. And it’s taken us long enough to get there so it’s great to have so much to talk about!

Is Monaco somewhere you’d be interested in visiting?

Read more European adventures here:
⭐ A Relaxing Five Days In Malta: Our Itinerary
⭐ The Best Of One Day In Porto – Viewpoints, Bookshops & Port
⭐ A Day Trip Guide: San Marino From Bologna
⭐ Slovenia: Loving Ljubljana & Visiting Lake Bled In March
⭐ Let’s Go To Luxembourg: An Underrated European City Break