Monte-Carlo

Walking distance here is measured vertically. The principality climbs from its harbours to a ridge in a few hundred metres of horizontal travel and a great deal of altitude, and the official answer to that is a network of public lifts and escalators threaded through the buildings and open to anyone. Find them and the whole of Monaco is a walk of fifteen minutes. Miss them and it is a staircase with a view.

Two square kilometres, and what fits inside them

Monte-Carlo is the quarter around the casino and its square. The Rock across the harbour holds the palace and the old town; the reclaimed ground below holds the marina and the apartment towers. All of it is smaller than many city parks, and that density is the character: a concert hall, a grand hotel, a superyacht berth and a public bus stop occupy the same two hundred metres, stacked on different levels. Nothing here is a district you travel to.

For a visit, the consequence is that Monaco is not a place you fill a week with. Two or three days exhausts the set pieces. What it does well is serve as a base with a view, or an evening that justifies dressing for, or one half of a Riviera trip whose other half is the coast either side of it.

When to come

April to June and September are the months to aim at: warm without the August crush, the sea usable, the evenings still long. Two dates are worth knowing about before you book. The Grand Prix takes over the streets in late spring, and because the circuit is the public road network the town becomes spectacular, impassable and priced accordingly. A yacht show does something similar to the harbour in late September. If either is your reason for coming, book far ahead; if neither is, check you have not landed on one by accident.

July and August bring heat and heavy crowds. Winter is mild and quiet, with the caveat that a place this dependent on outdoor glamour runs at half volume.

Is it expensive

At the top, yes, and less so than the reputation implies everywhere else. Headline prices — harbour-front suites, tasting menus, marina berths — are as advertised. But the principality also runs a bus service, a public beach, museums at ordinary prices and those free lifts, and it sits minutes from French towns where a coffee costs what it costs anywhere else on the coast.

Start with where you sleep, because that is the line that moves a Monaco bill. Rates inside the principality reflect a fixed supply of rooms on a fixed amount of land; the communes immediately either side are a short hop away and a different market entirely. The other lever is the evening: the same view is available from a public terrace as from a private one.

Where to stay

Splurge

The grand houses on the casino square and above the harbour, where the terrace is the product and the location puts the opera, the square and the waterfront within a few minutes on foot. This is the version of Monte-Carlo the place is famous for, and it is expensive in a way that is at least legible.

Mid-range

Hotels on the upper levels away from the water — solid, modern, often business-oriented, with the lift network making the walk down to the harbour trivial and the walk back up a non-issue. Your view is of rooftops rather than yachts, and the saving is substantial.

Good value

A room in the French communes bordering the principality, a few minutes out by train or bus. You get the coast, ordinary prices and a short commute into the glamour, which for most travellers is the right structure: spend the evening in Monaco and sleep next door.

What is worth the money

The setting, which no amount of description covers — the way the cliffs, the harbour and the towers stack up, seen properly from the ridge or from the water. The oceanographic collection, which is a serious institution rather than an attraction. And an evening properly done: the square, a terrace, the light going off the water, and the walk back up through the lifts.

Because the room and the location amount to the same decision here, comparing current stay and experience options before fixing dates is time well spent.