We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you ... you're just helping re-supply our family's travel fund.
Monaco is a beautiful, albeit tiny, city-state in the French Riviera and it’s best known for its casinos (Monte Carlo anyone?) and Grand Prix. It has luxe hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and even more luxurious people.
An hour car ride from Cannes, and just 41 minutes from Nice, it’s a popular destination for anyone visiting the South of France.
Traveling with my girlfriends, we decided to get an Uber to take us to Monaco from our hotel in Cannes. An Uber ride will cost you approximately €91-€166, depending on the type you get (a van will cost more).
We arrived early in the day and enjoyed incredible views, even more incredible sights, and lots of shopping and people watching. I’ve been to 21 countries in the last 18 months, and Monaco is easily in the top ten I’ve visited.
Where It All Went Wrong Visiting Monaco
You see, you can get into Monaco with an Uber…but you can’t get out with an Uber. We didn’t discover this until it was getting quite late and we decided to go back to our hotel in Cannes. We asked a security guard near one of the casinos about why we couldn’t get an Uber, and he said that’s because Uber doesn’t operate in Monaco.
A taxi ride would have cost us over €200, and some of the girls didn’t have the money to spend. The guard then told us that if we walk into France, we would be able to request an Uber. He pointed to the mountain side and said “there’s France!” Brilliant!
We hiked up to France, stopping along the way to ask locals in our very broken French, where to go. Mind you, it’s after 10pm.
We finally made the walk to France, only to discover we still couldn’t request an Uber!
None of our phones registered the fact that we were actually in France, and not still in Monaco. Distraught, we hurried back down the mountain to find an alternative. One of the gals had a 6am flight to catch in Nice the following day. We couldn’t stay in Monaco!
We found another security guard who informed us that if we hurried, we could catch the last train out of Monaco for the night. It was around 11:40 PM, and we ran as fast as we could to get to the train station.
We made it around 11:55 PM, but still had to purchase our tickets from the kiosk. Frantically, we tried several times but our cards weren’t working. We switched to another kiosk, and finally found one that worked.
The 11:59 train was pulling away just as we got there.
We ran as fast as we could at the train, and caught the last caboose. My friend had to pry the door open to make it on!
We took this train to Nice, where we planned to catch an Uber into Cannes because the train terminated in Nice (the last train to Cannes was at 11:13). The problem? Three of the four phones were dead, and the fourth had 3% battery left. We needed a phone to be able to request an Uber!
Once at the Nice train station, I requested an Uber as fast as I could, hoping and praying that the battery would last for us to communicate with the driver. He called to ask me where we were because there were too many people to tell.
Alas, the Uber driver saw us and we hopped in just as my phone died.
We were elated and relieved. We made it!
In the future, have a plan for getting out of Monaco!
This is a story we will continue to tell for decades to come.
Leave a Reply