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Small countries of Europe: Monaco

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My friend Polly Platt loves Monaco, a silver slipper of a country on a little shelf of the French Riviera not much bigger than Monte Carlo, its capital. But she also attended the wedding of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III here in 1956, the social event of the decade.

My experience of the principality, now ruled by the late prince's son, Albert II, was less memorable. I stopped here sans tiara a few years ago on a budget cruise and returned to the ship like a Cinderella who hadn't been invited to the ball.

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So I decided to do it in style when I returned in the spring with Sarah, my 20-year-old niece. During the Grand Prix, I booked a room for one night at the luxurious Hotel Port Palace overlooking the harbor and got tickets to watch a day of practice runs from the grandstand.

On the drive from Marseille, France, we stopped to have our rented Volvo station wagon washed and polished just to make a good impression in the car-crazy principality, home of Formula One's most glamorous race since 1929.

We had our choice of the low, middle or high corniche, as the roads that ply the 20-mile strip of Mediterranean coast between Nice, France, and the Italian border are known. Even the low one, which we chose, can be hair-raising, especially with a punctured tire -- but that came later. Meantime, the sky was blue, we were drinking diet colas and Sarah was spinning CDs.

Once we crossed the border into Monaco we hit traffic, diversions and barricades. During the Grand Prix (which takes place about the same time as the nearby Cannes Film Festival) the streets of waterfront Monte Carlo are turned into a tight, 2-mile track with a tunnel and 19 treacherous hairpin curves. F1 champion Nelson Piquet once said that driving the course is like riding a bike in a living room.

Sarah and I don't know a pole position (the top starting spot in an F1 event) from a chicane (an S-curve on a course), but we were willing to learn while indulging ourselves at the Port Palace. The hotel occupies a stylish high-rise decorated with vintage photos of such movie stars as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Clint Eastwood.

Cinched in by the Grand Prix course on two sides, its front door is at harbor level and its rooftop terrace is on Avenue d'Ostende, which yields directly to Monte Carlo's fabled Belle Époque-style casino.

Our double room overlooked the harbor, at the moment full of yachts with front-row views of the track from their polished decks. The rate for the night was $400, in line with premium prices during the five-day Grand Prix when businesses in the principality pull in as much as they make during five months of low season.

That night, Sarah and I put on frocks and high-heeled sandals to visit the casino, surrounded by fountains and flower gardens. We didn't ante up to get into the gaming rooms, but we did check out a photo exhibition in the marble-lined atrium of past Grand Prix champs including Michael Schumacher, who logged the fastest time for a lap in 2004 (about a minute and 14 seconds).

Outside, a Bentley was pulling up at the fabled Hotel de Paris, built in 1864. But when we tried to enter, the doorman turned us back, pointing to our apparently inappropriate footwear. So we adjourned to the equally sumptuous Hôtel Metropole nearby for cocktails, which cost twice as much as the pizza we had for dinner later.

Oh, well, you only go around once, right?

Wrong. At 8:30 the next morning, F1 vehicles were going round and round the circuit on practice runs, making a noise halfway between a swarm of wasps and a jackhammer. Sarah, who has long, blond hair, rushed to the window and she caught the eyes of Renault Team members, positioned below to aid their drivers.

After breakfast we made our way to the business district along Rue Grimaldi, where the Automobile Club of Monaco, which sponsors the event, had a boutique selling Grand Prix T-shirts, watches and ear plugs. A booth nearby was renting hand-held TV monitors so sports fans could follow the progress on the track wherever they went.

We watched for a while from our grandstand seats in front of the harbor, then climbed to the upper town atop the rock where a fortress has stood since the 13th century. In 1297 François Grimaldi, an exiled nobleman from Genoa, entered the fort disguised as a monk, thereby gaining temporary control of the stronghold. The Grimaldis ultimately became the sovereign lords of Monaco, thanks to treaties forged with France.

Their palace at the summit of the rock is open to visitors. So Sarah and I took the tour, with audio guides narrated by Prince Albert II. We admired the red and gold chamber where the English Duke of York died while visiting the principality on a sailing vacation in 1767 and the many portraits of beautiful Princess Grace, whose death in a 1982 car accident stunned the world.

Then Sarah and I had to hit the road because 24 hours at the Monaco Grand Prix was all we could afford. On our way out of the principality, an alert policeman pulled us over to warn us that our rear right tire was low. Lacking a backup team, we found a garage in Ventimiglia, just across the Italian border, where a nice young mechanic found a puncture and got us back on track.