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Hay destinos que te advierten desde el principio: esto no va a ser barato, chica. Mónaco no es sutil al respecto. Desde el momento en que el taxi desde Niza me cobró €85 por un trayecto de veinte minutos — con una sonrisa, además — supe que había entrado a otro tipo de universo. This was my second time in the principality, and the first time I decided to stop trying to do it on a "reasonable" budget and just… surrender. Rendirme completamente al lujo absurdo de un lugar que no se disculpa por ser lo que es.
La verdad es que planeé esta semana con Mateo en mente — él estaba en México City cerrando un proyecto de diseño, así que fue un viaje solo mío, one of those solo trips where you eat at the bar and order the second-most expensive wine because you're celebrating nothing and everything al mismo tiempo. Gasté más en siete días en Mónaco de lo que gasté en tres semanas en el sudeste asiático el año pasado. Y no tengo ni un poco de remordimiento. Here is every glorious, ridiculous detail.
If you've been reading about stretching a week on the French Riviera without hemorrhaging your savings account, consider this article the evil twin of that one. Mónaco is not the place for presupuesto strategies. It is the place for ordering the rosé you can't quite justify and deciding, halfway through the glass, que sí valió la pena.
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I stayed at the Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo for five nights, and amiga, I am not going to pretend the bill didn't make me inhale sharply when I checked out. My room — a Superior Sea View on the fifth floor — ran €1,100 per night in early June, which lands you in a world of Belle Époque moldings, a bathtub you could host a small dinner party in, and a view of Port Hercule that looks genuinely fake, like a screensaver someone turned up too high en saturación. The breakfast buffet alone, at €65 per person, was the kind of spread that makes you reconsider your entire relationship with a weekday croissant back home.
What I did not expect was how much the ambiente of the Hermitage would do for my mental state. There's something about a hotel that has been receiving royalty since 1896 — the staff moves with this quiet, unhurried precision que te contagia. I stopped checking my phone by day two. I ordered room service at 11 p.m. (a €38 club sandwich that was, de verdad, the best club sandwich of my life) and sat on my balcony watching the yachts in the harbor until midnight. For anyone who wonders whether boutique hotels or grand palace properties deliver more emotional return on a splurge — in Mónaco, the grand palace wins, porque the scale of the place is part of the fantasy.
A few practical notes, because I know you want them: book directly through the hotel's website for the best available rate and complimentary upgrades when the floor is available. I booked about six weeks out and was offered a one-category upgrade at check-in. ¡Increíble! They also have a spa, the Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo, which is technically a separate facility connected to the hotel — I paid €180 for a 90-minute Signature Riviera massage, and I floated out of there como si no tuviera huesos. Budget for it. It is non-negotiable.
Let me be honest about the food situation en Mónaco: you can eat cheaply if you are disciplined and willing to walk into Nice for a day, but if you are staying in the principality and leaning into the experience, the meals are going to be an event, not a transaction. I made peace with that on day one and proceeded to eat magnificently. My single best meal of the week was at Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse, inside the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo. Three Michelin stars, a dining room so gilded it feels like eating inside a Fabergé egg, and a tasting menu at €380 per person (wine pairing extra, obviously — I added the €160 pairing because, qué más da at that point). The langoustine with caviar and a cold bisque poured tableside is a dish I still think about con nostalgia genuina.
For something slightly less dramático on the wallet, I had two dinners at Nobu Monte-Carlo, which sits right on the port. The black cod with miso is €58 and it is, as Mateo would say if he'd been there, "worth every cent and then some." The terrace at golden hour, with the mega-yachts drifting past and the light turning everything esa tonalidad de naranja suave — that's the Mónaco postcard moment, and it costs you the price of a main course. I also did one very intentional lunch at a café in La Condamine market, the local neighborhood where actual residents shop: a croque monsieur and a glass of picpoul for €22 total, and I felt like I'd found a secret passageway into a less theatrical version of the city.
My food budget for the week, including the Louis XV dinner, two Nobu evenings, daily breakfasts at the hotel, and scattered lunches: approximately €1,800. Chica, I know. But I came for the whole experience, and la comida was a non-negotiable part of it. If you're comparing this to other bucket-list-level splurges — and I have done my share of them, from destinations that demand every penny to overwater bungalows in the Maldivas — Mónaco's food scene holds its own as a reason to go, not just a side effect of being there.
The Casino de Monte-Carlo is €17 to enter the main gaming rooms, which feels almost laughably modest given what happens inside. I am not a gambler — de verdad, I find slot machines deeply boring — but I went twice, because the building itself is the point. Designed by Charles Garnier (yes, the same architect as the Paris Opéra), the interior is all stained glass, frescoed ceilings, and a particular kind of hushed intensity que no puedes fabricar. I sat at a roulette table with €100, lost €60, won €40 back, and called it a night feeling like I'd participated in something cinematic rather than financial. The second visit I just had a drink at the Bar Américain inside — a Negroni at €28 — and watched the room. That was the better evening, honestly.
The Palais Princier — Prince's Palace — is open to visitors from June through October, and the guided tour is €10, which is the single greatest value in the entire principality. You walk through the State Apartments, see the Throne Room, and stand on the terrace looking out over the Mediterranean with a view that costs the same as a mediocre airport sandwich. ¡Qué lindo! I went on a Tuesday morning when the crowds were thin, and I spent nearly two hours there, half of them just sitting on a bench outside the ramparts, watching the sea and thinking about nothing in particular. Those are the moments that travel gives you that no price tag quite captures — esos momentos de quietud that reset something inside you.
My total for the week — hotel, food, casino, activities, taxis, and one very unnecessary but extremely beautiful silk scarf from a boutique on the Avenue de la Costa — came to just under €8,500. For seven days. In a place roughly the size of Central Park. And here is what I know, sitting here writing this with the memory of that balcony and that bisque and that Tuesday morning at the palace: vale la pena. Not every trip, not every year — but once, fully, without apology, Mónaco is worth surrendering to. Book your stay through Expedia and start with the Hermitage if the Hôtel de Paris is sold out; both properties deliver that particular magia monegasca that makes the bill sting just a little less on checkout day.
Viaja bien, vive al máximo, y repite.
— Sofía
Viaja bien, vive al máximo, y repite.
— Sofía