Avenue Princesse Grace, Alpes-Maritimes
Rate on request
No payment now. A room preference is a request, not guaranteed availability. Personal confirmation within 24 hours.
Monte-Carlo Beach carries the most glamorous name on the coast and belongs to the company that runs the Casino. It is reached along the Avenue Princesse Grace, and nearly everyone who stays there assumes they are in Monaco. The address says otherwise. The hotel stands a few steps past the border, on a headland in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, which makes it French, if only just. Guests get Monaco without having to be in it, and the principality looks its best from next door.
The hotel went up in the late 1920s at the water's edge, a low villa washed in terracotta red. It still looks like a house built for summer and nothing else. India Mahdavi has since dressed it in sunny Riviera colours that its first guests would have recognised at once. Beside it lies a pine wood that doubles as a bird sanctuary. Monaco has no room left for a forest. France, a few metres away, still does.
With only forty rooms and suites, the house never feels crowded indoors, whatever is happening on the beach. Most rooms open onto verandas, some facing the open sea and others looking back across the bay towards Monaco. Those bay-view rooms are the ones worth having. The furniture is simple and summery, and nothing inside competes with the view. When the lights come on across the water in the evening, the principality looks like a stage set seen from a very comfortable seat.
The day keeps a simple order, pool first and sea second. The hotel was built around an Olympic-sized pool of seawater, and an early swim there has hardly changed in a century. Later, guests wander down to the beach, where tents line the water and loungers by Jacquemus wait on the jetty. Anyone feeling restless can paddle a kayak along the headland and come back for lunch by the pool, eaten in a swimsuit and without ceremony.
Dinner belongs to Elsa, named after the American hostess who threw the hotel's first parties. Marcel Ravin cooks the sea and the garden there, and the menu follows the boats and the seasons. On a warm evening, the terrace makes leaving difficult. Monaco is only fifteen minutes away on the hotel's boat to its harbour, but on most evenings looking at it is enough.
The pleasures are shared, though. The beach club welcomes members and day visitors as well as hotel guests. In July and August, the pool can feel more like a promenade than a retreat. The season is a summer one, and in winter the doors stay closed. On land, Monte-Carlo is a long walk away, so the boat and the hotel's shuttle bus earn their keep.
Monaco is a place to be seen. From the veranda next door, it is a place to look at, and many guests find that by far the better arrangement.
Over the border
The address is Avenue Princesse Grace, but the commune is Roquebrune-Cap-Martin: the hotel stands in France, a few steps from the Principality, and belongs to the Monegasque Société des Bains de Mer.
Nearly every room and suite opens onto a loggia, a recessed balcony in the same warm red as the facade, with cane armchairs and a round table. From the sea-view categories the line of Monaco runs across the bay. The Exclusive Room, the entry category, has 30 m² inside and a 4.5 m² loggia; one is adapted for reduced mobility.
The pool has been the centre of the place for nearly a century. It is filled with seawater, heated to 28 °C and ozone-treated, runs from 0.80 to 3.50 metres deep and keeps two diving boards. Dorothée Delaye redesigned its cabanas, daybeds and loungers; a toddlers' pool sits beside it, and the pool bar serves the loungers.
Below the hotel a pebble beach curves along the headland, lined with striped canvas tents that are let by the day or for the whole season. There are 200 tents, 90 cabins and 30 sun lounges, and Les Cabanas brings lunch to the tents. Pedalos, paddleboards, kayaks and water bikes leave from the shore and are included for hotel guests.
Le Deck is the lunch address, a terrace raised above the Olympic pool with views across the bay. Its cane chairs, flowering borders and tables were redesigned by Dorothée Delaye, and the kitchen cooks Mediterranean dishes for sharing, mostly from the sea. Swimwear and casual dress are the norm around the pool, so lunch rarely needs a change of clothes.
At a glance
Where
Avenue Princesse Grace, 06190 Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France; on a headland just east of Monaco, past the Larvotto shore, below a pine wood; Monaco's Port Hercule 15 minutes by the hotel's boat; Nice Côte d'Azur airport by the Express 80 bus to the Sporting stop, or 7 minutes by helicopter to Monaco
Why this one
Loggias face the Principality.
Olympic size, heated to 28 °C.
Fifteen minutes to Port Hercule.
The Edit Notes
Every category is listed with a sea view and most open onto a loggia, but the outlook differs. The loggia photographs show Monaco's skyline across the bay; the Exclusive Junior Suites look into the pine wood as well; the Duplex Suite overlooks the beach and the pool; the Two Bedroom Suite faces the pool. The Exclusive Superior Rooms have a ground-floor terrace with steps down to the La Vigie promenade, easier with children but closer to passers-by.
The hotel and its beach club open from April to October and close for the winter; the exact dates are announced each season. Elsa, Le Deck, the spa, the boat shuttle and the water sports run to their own schedules inside that period, so an early-April or late-October stay may find some of them not yet open or already closed. Check the restaurant and spa dates before fixing the nights, especially for a dinner at Elsa.
The Olympic pool and the private beach serve hotel guests, club members, guests of the other Société des Bains de Mer hotels and day visitors. Tents, cabins and loungers are let by the day or for the whole season, and from mid-July to the end of August day visitors' loungers cannot be reserved at all. For a quieter spot, one of the five bungalow cabins above the sea, each with its own terrace, can be booked by telephone.
The hotel runs boats from Port Hercule, Monaco's harbour, taking about fifteen minutes and six passengers each, included for guests; transfers from outside the Principality can also be arranged by sea. On land, a resort shuttle links the hotel with the group's addresses in Monte-Carlo. Monaco's authorities require identity documents for every guest, children included, so passports or ID cards should travel with the whole family. Drivers can leave the car with the valet at the door.
The price question
The money buys a room with a loggia on a headland facing Monaco, a seawater pool that has been the centre of the place since 1929, and a boat to the harbour. It does not buy privacy: the pool and beach belong to a club as much as to the hotel, and in high summer they are busy. The real comparison is a hotel inside Monaco with a pass to a beach club.
Book it for summer days built around the pool, the sea and one dinner at Elsa, with the evening view of Monaco from the loggia as the reward. Anyone who wants to spend the nights in the Principality's bars and casinos, or to travel out of season, is better placed in a hotel inside Monaco.
Fairmont Monte Carlo
A large hotel inside Monaco, on the hairpin bend of the Grand Prix circuit below the Casino, with a rooftop pool over the sea.
Le Méridien Beach Plaza
A hotel inside Monaco on the Larvotto shore, with its own private beach and pools, a short walk from Monte-Carlo Beach along Avenue Princesse Grace.
The Extra Edit
Confirmed with your quote
Something extra, from us.
Ask for a stay and a person takes it from there. Any hotel privileges that apply, and a personal Extra arranged by us, are confirmed with your bookable quote.
Tell us which Extra appeals in your request. Nothing is charged when you ask, and no upgrade is promised.
A drink, a meal or an experience: chosen by you, arranged by us.
A person confirms your request within 24 hours.
Rate on request
Personal confirmation within 24 hours