Check In: Fairmont Monte Carlo
Check In: Fairmont Monte Carlo
By Renée Morrison
Walk into the neo-baroque Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, on its cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and you might feel as though you’ve stepped back into the time of Jacques Cousteau and his pioneering marine expeditions. The legendary explorer was the museum’s director from 1957 to 1988, helping to curate a collection that includes over 6,000 aquatic specimens on display in painstaking recreations of their natural habitats. You’ll also find a rotating display of ocean-inspired artwork, of which past installations have included Damien Hirst’s vitrine- enclosed sharks and an enormous octopus by Huang Yong Ping. In the permanent collection, peruse fossils, pearls and model ships collected by founder Prince Albert I on his oceanographic explorations between 1885 and 1915. And, in the Whale Room, climb to the mezzanine to stand eye-to-eye with a collection of suspended sea mammal skeletons, among them a fin whale weighing 2.8 tons.