Probably the most famous museum in Monaco is the Private Car Collection of the Princes of Monaco. It is the labor of love of multiple generation of Monaco rulers and as such it has quite a few rare cars. When we visit it also has a temporary exhibit with Ferrari race cars which sounds interesting so in we go.
The museum is spread on two levels and we start on the lower one which has the more historical cars. It is quite an eclectic collection including motorcycles and various rare cars from the early 1900s.
There are also a few horse drawn carriages, possibly even used by the princes way back but what we are most captivated is a small airplane looking car, it feels like something from a steampunk movie.
Then we pass the Italian car section which has a few movies playing in the background showing how often they were used in famous movies.
Then we get into the more modern cars with many of them having doors opening in weird ways that could never be used in the typical small European garages. But maybe they are better in the narrow street side parking spots as you won’t hit the car next to you?
There are a few rally cars also including a Paris Dakar one but we are even more fascinated by a small BMW car that has a driver door that opens…. forward?
And then we move to the top level which holds the Ferrari exhibit. There are lots and lots of red race cars with a few other colors sprinkled in and a few TVs playing races with a focus on the Monaco Grand Prix. It is quite interesting and we are happy that we made the detour to visit it.
And then it is time to walk up to the last attraction of the day, the famous Monte Carlo casino. On the way we see quite a few interesting cars on the way, after the museum we keep an eye out for them. We are quite tired when we get at the casino but it is the last place we plan to visit today and we couldn’t miss it.
