Destination: French Riviera
Top Ten
1 Casino, Monte-Carlo
2 Corniche d'Or
3 Èze
4 Fondation Maeght, St-Paul-de-Vence
5 Îles de Lérins
6 MAMAC, Nice
7 Musée Matisse, Nice
8 Musée Océanographique, Monaco
9 Musée Picasso, Antibes
10 Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
8 Musée Océanographique, Monaco

Perched high on a sheer cliff, this museum of marine science with its spectacular aquarium is the finest of its kind.

Monaco's prestigious Oceanographic Museum was founded in 1910 by Prince Albert I, who was a keen oceanographer, as an institute for scientific research and to house the many marine specimens he collected on his numerous voyages.

Financed by profits from the Casino, it took 11 years and 100,000 tons of white stone from la Turbie to build. The resulting edifice, with its staggering 85m sheer façade that plunges straight into the sea, is a masterpiece of monumental architecture.

The museum contains some exceptional collections of nautical instruments, marine flora and fauna, including the skeletons of a 20m whale and a 200kg giant turtle; models of all the magnificent ships built for the sovereign's voyages, along with the laboratory installed in his last boat, Hirondelle II; displays demonstrating natural sea phenomena such as waves, tides, currents and salinity; and the world's first submarine.

The basement houses the famed Aquarium, which exhibits thousands of rare fish with beautifully lit displays of living corals from all over the world, in a huge state-of-the-art Shark Lagoon and in 90 tanks with a direct supply of sea water. Don't miss the Pacific black-tipped sharks, the Australian leafy seadragons, the shimmering sea slugs, the luminous yellow sturgeon, the sinister black lantern-eye fish (aptly nicknamed 'demons of the night') and, if you are able to spot them, the cunningly camouflaged marine chameleons.

The remainder of the building contains research laboratories specialising in the study of ocean pollution and radioactivity that, until recently, were headed by marine explorer Jacques Cousteau.



Address: avenue St-Martin, Monaco-Ville
Phone: 377/193 15 36 00
Open: Oct-Mar 10-6, Apr-Sep 9-7
Restaurant: Restaurant and bar (Moderately priced)
Bus: Monaco
Accessible: Very good
Admission: Very expensive
Practical: A variety of short films on marine related subjects are shown daily
Info: 2a boulevard des Moulins Phone: 377/92 16 61 16
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