Monaco: Playground Of The Rich

[Principessa]

Recently I came across a documentary series about Monaco, broadcast on a Dutch television channel. In this series one comes very close to the princely family of Monaco, many of the shots are in and around the palace. Apparently the series originally aired in 2020. It is unknown to me if you already know it, but I thought I will share it here too.

The trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvW_o-97UEA


BBC player with access to the 3 episodes of the series:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jyk8

[Kitty]

Episode 1: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgo

Episode 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgp

Episode 3: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgr

[Principessa]

Episode 1: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgo

Episode 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgp

Episode 3: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vtkgr

Thank you

[emtishell]

I stumbled across this while channel surfing last night, what fun! My husband visited Monaco many years ago (on a trip without me), and it was great to see it in “almost” real life!

Some things that surprised me;

I didn’t realise just how much Albert really governs Monaco, even down to personally approving applications for citizenship!

They spoke a lot to Albert, and went to his office at the palace. They also spoke to Caroline at the ballet and Stephanie at another event. I was surprised to hear them speak english with a full on American accent, I guess I never even considered that, I assumed they would have more european accents.

The also showed Camille going to Monaco’s only tattoo parlour!

They also featured our fave, Princess Barbie (who I didn’t realise was a good friend of Albert and met her husband through him). She was judging both an influencer competition and a vintage yacht show.

Lots of other scenes of the absolute wealth and insane living.

Fun little escape if you can watch it.

[thecrownjewelthief]

I stumbled across this while channel surfing last night, what fun! My husband visited Monaco many years ago (on a trip without me), and it was great to see it in “almost” real life!

Some things that surprised me;

I didn’t realise just how much Albert really governs Monaco, even down to personally approving applications for citizenship!

They spoke a lot to Albert, and went to his office at the palace. They also spoke to Caroline at the ballet and Stephanie at another event. I was surprised to hear them speak english with a full on American accent, I guess I never even considered that, I assumed they would have more european accents.

The also showed Camille going to Monaco’s only tattoo parlour!

They also featured our fave, Princess Barbie (who I didn’t realise was a good friend of Albert and met her husband through him). She was judging both an influencer competition and a vintage yacht show.

Lots of other scenes of the absolute wealth and insane living.

Fun little escape if you can watch it.

That does actually sound like a lot of fun! I’ll have to see if I can find it anywhere.

[Miss Marple]

I visited Monaco not too long ago and I was pleasantly surprised, also, even though it was a very wealthy place, normal humans could actually afford a sandwich at the supermarket. As we have some (really hungry) children we had a picknic near the harbour (well aware that this was not something that went on there on a daily basis) and sure enough - when the sandwiches were made, the police was there. We expected that they would tell us to move on, but they had just seen our gathering in the surveilance videos, they smiled at us and wished us a happy meal and left again.

I was there later with my students who went to the casino to see some flashy cars and met Charles Spencer in the parking lot. They talked to him about his car and he apparently was very nice, just declined to have selfies taken. But he took his time and talked to them. (Sadly my students do not follow royal dish and just knew that he was very famous, but had no real clue who he was). They took one picture and showed it ... dang, I should have gone to the casino with them.

The girl doing a guided tour complained a bit about Caroline, apparently there was a time when Caroline showed up without an appointment to visit her dad's grave in the cathedral which always resulted in having the whole cathedral blocked off for the duration of her visit. It is her late mom and dad but she said that she wished it was somehow predictable when she would show up. Not sure if that is still a problem.

[Principessa]

I visited Monaco not too long ago and I was pleasantly surprised, also, even though it was a very wealthy place, normal humans could actually afford a sandwich at the supermarket. As we have some (really hungry) children we had a picknic near the harbour (well aware that this was not something that went on there on a daily basis) and sure enough - when the sandwiches were made, the police was there. We expected that they would tell us to move on, but they had just seen our gathering in the surveilance videos, they smiled at us and wished us a happy meal and left again.

I was there later with my students who went to the casino to see some flashy cars and met Charles Spencer in the parking lot. They talked to him about his car and he apparently was very nice, just declined to have selfies taken. But he took his time and talked to them. (Sadly my students do not follow royal dish and just knew that he was very famous, but had no real clue who he was). They took one picture and showed it ... dang, I should have gone to the casino with them.

The girl doing a guided tour complained a bit about Caroline, apparently there was a time when Caroline showed up without an appointment to visit her dad's grave in the cathedral which always resulted in having the whole cathedral blocked off for the duration of her visit. It is her late mom and dad but she said that she wished it was somehow predictable when she would show up. Not sure if that is still a problem.

Thank you for these great stories/ anecdotes! 

[Konradin]

Nothing that was related here does surprise me actually, just imagine that Albert mostly manages a microstate, a really tiny one at that, which happens to be a playground for wealthy people, he is mostly the mayor of Riviera Richtown, his main business is to make sure it states that way, that there would be a Grimaldi to make sure that business still goes on, and that they could claim more, and more land out of the sea. I'm curious whether the peoples of Menton and Roquebrune regret their choice as to leave Monaco and become part of France nowadays, I'm sure the Grimaldi do, it would have given them a huge chance to profit on that lands for sure.