The Palace of Monaco or the Prince's Palace of Monaco (in the original, the Palais Princier de Monaco) is the official residence of the royal family of Monaco, currently represented by Prince Albert II, his wife Princess Charlene and their twin children Jaime and Charlene.
Although on the outside the Palace of Monaco doesn't have the same visual impact as other European royal houses, the building itself is worth a visit.
Ticket and entrance to the Palace of Monaco
The visit costs €10 / adult (2023), which can be cheaper if you buy the package with the Prince of Monaco's Car Collection, the Rainier III Zoo or the Monaco Oceanographic Museum. Tickets can be bought online (here.) or in person at the souvenir store in the main square in front of the palace, with no specific time for the visit.
After buying our tickets, we went to the queue for individual entrances which, although apparently long, only took about five minutes. From here we went through a metal detector and backpacks were searched, but no food or drink was allowed in.
Before starting the tour, each visitor is given an audio guide (in the form of a walkie talkie), with several language options. These include Portuguese (from Brazil) and, of course, English and Spanish.
Visiting the Palace of Monaco
As soon as you climb the initial staircase, even before entering any room, you are greeted by the majestic Gallery of Hercules, the Palace's staircase and courtyard. Here there are around three million stones that form a geometric pattern around the main marble staircase.
It is from the large courtyard that the first stop on the guided tour begins, in a room where we find several paintings and a large tapestry referring to the Grimaldi and the history of the founding of Monaco, all explained in detail by the audio guide.
Among the various rooms, the beauty of the floors, always personalized and with various patterns, and the highly adorned ceilings stand out. Some of the most outstanding rooms visited are the Throne Room, the Blue Room and the Red Room.
On the full visit, there are two issues you should consider: the first is that the Palace is still under renovation, so there may be covered rooms or scaffolding at times. When we visited the Palace (September 2023), the 3rd room, known for its elaborately carved ceiling, was completely covered for refurbishment reasons and the Throne Room had scaffolding where two people were restoring paintings.
The second thing to bear in mind is that (perhaps for the first reason) there may be closed rooms. In our case, the audio guide skipped two or three numbers in a corridor with closed doors. Among the skipped numbers, we know that one of them was the Library, which was on the audio guide but was closed at the time of our visit.
In total, always dedicate around 1 hour to the visit, as the audio guide goes into great detail.
Obviously, the Palace itself is much larger than you can see, and you only get to see the west wing. However, this visit already gives you an idea of how majestic the Prince's Palace is, and also gives you (via the audio guide) a good insight into the history of this principality.
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Português