Hotel Metropole Monte Carlo

Hotel Metropole Monte Carlo

Behind a Belle Époque façade in Monaco's Carré d'Or, Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo has welcomed guests since 1886, its 126 rooms and suites spread across seven floors, the most recent of them reworked in 2025 by designer Jacques Garcia into a warmer, Mediterranean update. It sits within walking distance of the Matisse Museum, Place Garibaldi and the Plage du Pont de Fer, so the city unfolds on foot rather than by taxi. What sets it apart from every other address on this stretch of coast is the Odyssey pool, the only swimming pool Karl Lagerfeld ever designed, its heated seawater set beneath eighteen backlit glass panels tracing Ulysses' voyage across the Mediterranean and screened by palms and cypress trees. Dinner runs from Les Ambassadeurs, where Christophe Cussac holds two Michelin stars, to Yoshi's Japanese cooking in a room designed by Didier Gomez, to Zia's Italian menu through summer and a poolside table at Odyssey itself. The Spa Metropole by Guerlain, opened the same year as the room renovation, adds ten treatment rooms, a hammam, a cold plunge and a Technogym fitness studio for those who plan a day around recovery rather than sightseeing. Families travelling with children will find a kids' club, a playroom and family suites with two bedrooms, and pet owners can bring theirs along for a fee. Guests drawn to two-Michelin-star dining, casino proximity and a design lineage running from Jacques Garcia to Karl Lagerfeld will feel at home; anyone chasing a bargain or a loud beach-club scene should look elsewhere. What lingers afterward is that pool at night, its glass panels lit from within, tracing a story most people walking past the casino never notice. A 1886 address in Monaco's Carré d'Or, recently reworked by Jacques Garcia, with the only pool Karl Lagerfeld ever designed and two Michelin stars at dinner. Built for guests who want gastronomy and quiet design pedigree over a beach-club scene, not for anyone counting euros on the extra-bed fee.