Day Trip to Monte Carlo, Monaco

On the day we arrived in Nice, our hotel room wasn’t ready yet so we dropped off our bags with the bell hop and took the train over to Monaco for the afternoon. It was about a 35 minute ride from Nice to Monaco.

We were excited to be in Monaco because Fred and I are both huge Formula 1 fans and it just so happened to be the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix. It was interesting to see how the city of Monte Carlo prepares for the race.

For more content about our day trip to Monaco you can check out our vlog on my YouTube channel here.

We were quite hungry when we arrived and challenged ourselves to find somewhere to eat that was under four dollar signs. After searching Google maps for a few minutes we came across an Italian restaurant by the name of “Il Terrazzino”. It was a quaint spot with delicious, authentic Italian food. We started with a caprese salad then Fred and I ordered our Italian favorites - his being fruti de mari and mine being gnocchi (which was prepared with a gorgonzola cream sauce). All of our food was amazing and kept us full while we explored Monaco afterwards.

After having lunch, we made our way over to the famous Monte Carlo Casino. Fun fact about this casino - the locals are banned from gambling there!

Fred was especially excited to take some photos with the Formula 1 car they had on display as it was that of Ferrari - his favorite team.

By this time, we were on the hunt for a place to grab a cocktail and were lucky enough to stumble upon the Fairmont Hotel which has a Nikki Beach location on their rooftop pool. We ordered our drinks and then took in the views of the hairpin turn of the Monaco Grand Prix track.

Since we were visiting on Thursday, there wasn’t any Formula 1 events but we were able to see part of the Porsche Supercup race which was pretty exciting (& very loud!).

We certainly want to go back to Monaco another time to enjoy more of the city and hopefully be able to attend the Monaco Grand Prix - it’s on both of our bucket lists!