Monaco and the Monte Carlo Casino – Contiki Mediterranean Quest Tour

A Night Out in Monaco with our Contiki Mediterranean Quest Tour Group

Oh Monaco, where can we start? Monaco is the second smallest county in the world, the highest GDP per capita in the world, and highest population density in the world. The life expectancy at birth for those in Monaco is also one of the highest in the world, which makes sense because everyone is filthy rich. Of course, as a group of aged 18-34 year old backpackers, we don’t really fit the clientele expected for most places in Monaco. Nonetheless, we dressed in the finest clothes that H&M can make and headed to the country of Monaco for a ‘classy night out.’

First, upon entering the country of Monaco, we all jumped off the coach to take in the amazing view from the top of the city, and to toast to our night out with a plastic cup of bubbly. After our toast (and a few selfies), it was off to our group dinner. On the way to the group dinner, our tour manager showed us the church Grace Kelly was married in, the St. Nicholas Cathedral.

St. Nicholas Cathedral

We had a nice (relatively affordable) dinner at a local restaurant, and then it was time to hit up the Monte Carlo Casino. The Monte Carlo is a world famous casino, known for attracting the world’s richest, most famous people and characters alike (including 007 himself, James Bond). Lucky for us, the unpredictable European fall weather struck again, and there was a full-on downpour happening by the time we finished our dinner. Another lucky point was that we were scheduled to walk to the Monte Carlo Casino from the restaurant.

Our Monte Carlo Casino Experience

So off we went, trudging along in the pouring rain on our way to the richest casino in the world. We finally arrived at the main entrance of the casino, where we still had to pay 10 euros to gain entry (at Monte Carlo you have to pay extreme amounts of money to enter most gambling rooms). Unfortunately, photos weren’t allowed at the casino, so we couldn’t document the funny moment of standing in the foyer of the Monte Carlo ringing out our fancy dress attire, and trying to pull it together so we could go act like James Bond for an hour.

The roulette table had a minimum bet of 20 euros for an outside pick. We decided that we would follow Contiki’s #noregrets logo, and throw 20 euros on black. With one roll of the roulette ball, our money was gone, but we were still riding on the experience of sitting in the Monte Carlo casino together.

After our time was up at the casino, our group tried to make a classy exit. We stepped out the the casino floor, and we then we saw the craziness that we would be walking into. We are talking torrential downpour with thunder and lightning lighting up the skies of Monaco. Of course, the bus wasn’t allowed to pull up the casino, so there our group went running like mad people between the ferarris and porsches to find our bus hidden in a distant parking garage. We ran through the streets laughing so hard, completely soaked (even though Desta had an umbrella), and although we were drenched from head to toe, our whole group was in the best of spirits, and we blasted music in our beloved coach bus all the way back to Nice.

Storm outside the Monte Carlo

Lightning Strikes!

We later found out that the French Riviera area experienced two months worth of rainfall that evening, and there were even deaths associated with the flash flooding caused by the rain. We were very thankful that all we had were some wet shoes and clothes from the evening and that we all got home safe and sound. We cozied up on our warm single bed, and set our alarms for another early morning, as we were off to Cinque Terre, Italy the next day!