5 reasons to book with us

Find the best chic, boutique & luxury hotels
Lowest rates guaranteed
Reviews by professional travel writers
Highly detailed hotel information
Looking for help? Speak directly to our travel consultants

Need ideas?

Try the TI hotel hotlists for shortcuts to some of our favourite hotels around the world.

Legend

Recommended
tour operators

Can Monaco Survive

A recent stroll through the frighteningly tidy streets of Monte Carlo – where high-pressure water canons patrol the sidewalks each morning in search of delinquant dust – revealed that the tiny 1.95 square mile sovereign state is showing signs of becoming a tired parody of its former self.

In association
with

Articles

Monaco is a strange beast which, depending on whom you ask, is either heaven on earth or a tacky terracotta haven for parapatetic moguls and tax-dodgers. The Principality’s niche as a seaside tax haven is all in the numbers; few of the approximately 32,000 citizens are full-time residents, and less than 15% can claim to be native Monegasques. While municipal authorities are slow to refute Monaco’s playground-for wealthy status, they realize chintzy image alone is not enough to sustain tourism. In fact, a recent stroll through the frighteningly tidy streets of Monte Carlo – where high-pressure water canons patrol the sidewalks each morning in search of delinquant dust – revealed that the tiny 1.95 square mile sovereign state is showing signs of becoming a tired parody of its former self.

Monaco has hosted a fare share of twentieth century golden moments, all pale in comparison to April 19, 1956 when current regent Prince Rainier III wed Grace Patricia Kelly. ‘Grace Kelley was the one of the most fantastic PR stunts of all time. She put Monaco on the map,’ says Serge Pierryves, the 38-year-old Head of the Department of General Administration at the Monaco Government Tourist and Convention Authority. In other words, after the wedding the investors came. ‘We cherish this history, but at a certain point you have to say it’s time to move on.’

The Monegasque government is hedging its future on a few large-scale infrustructural projects meant, in Mr. Pierryves’s words, ‘to propel the Principality into the 21st century.’ The first project, unveiled in 1999, is the 440-meter underground railway terminal built to better accommodate the thousands of (mainly French) commuters working for Monegasque companies. The second project, the avante-garde Grimaldi Forum, was completed in 2000. Situated seaside, the Grimaldi Forum offers enough square footage to hold the type of large-scale conventions Cannes, Barcelona, Vienna and Milan are reeling in. The final project, scheduled to be towed in from Gibraltar in 2003, is a half-floating jetty designed to protect the Principality’s precious coastline and, some would say more importantly, to free up quay space for luxury yachts and medium-sized cruiseships currently docking in French harbours just beyond Monaco’s boundaries.

For the past 30 years Monaco has been developing, planning, building and expanding in an attempt to be viewed as a modern country. It devotes a lot of its diplomatic resources seeking membership into international organisations like the European Council. But to be a modern city one has to act like a modern city, and this is an area where, in recent years, Monaco has made much progress. While not entirely relinquishing the pomp and chintz that has made the principality what it is, Monaco realizes that to compete with Barcelona and London as an urban retreat it needs to let down its hair a little. The Grand Prix and Tennis Masters Series are fine enough, but weekendtrippers want boutique hotels and sassy venues. In this light, the opening of the Columbus Hotel in Monte-Carlo was revolutionary, as it introduced the idea of a luxury designer boutique hotel to a city which has been using Belle Epoch grade dames like Hotel de Paris and Hotel Hermitage as its business card. And when not wiling away cocktails at the Columbus Hotel bar, parapetatic wonks can be found at the somewhat pretentious Zebra Square (this is Monaco after all) or at French chef Alain Ducasse’s Bar & Boeuf whose minimalist interiors and gorgeous terrace can be accredited to designer Philippe Starck. Equally empitemous is the Les Thermes Seawater Spa, which clings to the Cliffside overlooking the crowded harbour and boasts underground passages to the nearby luxury hotels. It is not quite Paris, but with the Mediterranean at your doorstep and the palatial Alps in the backyard, it doesn’t need to be.

Monaco’s wont of a makeover is hardly unique. Singapore, for example, embarked on a more dramatic state-sponsored about-face that transformed the city-island-state from raunchy sailor grotto to high-gloss metropolis with vaguely veiled despotic tendencies. More recently, so has Estonia. Yet neither Singapore nor Estonia were, like Monaco, already sitting atop the food chain. ‘I’m flattered by the comparison to Singapore,’ he says, while nibbling a portion of bar ba givan at his usual table at Café de Paris. ‘But we are definitely more casual than Singapore. Definitely.’ Less flattered is he with the alikeness to Disneyland whose streets are comparably sterile and has a tendency to be a walking billboard of itself. ‘If Monaco is too clean, if it sometimes seems too perfect, then you simply have to dig deeper to find the reality. There is a soul here.’

Maybe, but it’s still very much an old soul. But there are several institutions that seem to be standing in the way of progress. The half century long building spree by Prince Rainier has virtually saturated all but a small portion of the dimutivive principality; the only real alternative that remains is in fact land reclamation from the sea. There’s also that monarchical issue; when will the builder-king Rainier finally relinquish his throne to his parapatetic son Albert, the permatan successor who alone seems to harbour enough umph to propel Monaco into a position it desperately wants to obtain: that of weekend getaway and conference capital. However, some question whether Ranier will ever step down. In the past five years he’s passed up several numerically applaudible opportunities to relinquish his throne in a style befitting his reign – the 700-year anniversary of the Grimaldi dynasty in 1997, his own 50 year jubilee in 1999 and the new millennium two years back. All the logical data have come and gone. But not to worry. Monaco has survived since the 14th century and today occupies three times as much land mass as, say, in 1848. ‘It’s not whether Monaco will survive, but how it will survive.’