Musee Oceanographique

The main reason for coming back to Monaco was the Musee Oceanographique. My trusty guidebook had built it up as the best in the world and if you only see one Aquarium, this should be it. Now having grown up near Sea World while younger, and enjoyed the Sydney Aquarium, this certainly sounded interesting to find out what the benchmark in Aquariums look like.

The Aquarium is housed in this fantastic building and has been there, as an aquarium for over 100 years.


Basically, Queen of England likes to hunt in the woods, Prince of Monaco liked to hunt in the ocean (predominately whales). It was also the base of operations for Jacque Coustow so has a whole history attached to it.

The place is pretty phenonmial and until about 16:00, more staff than tourists. Thus it was great just to sit infront of the various large tanks and watch the fishes with no one else around. Being on the mediterranean, naturally enough had a lot of mediterranean creatures which was great to see.

This is one of the wings which has tanks down either side of the room and a funky circular tank in the middle (and no one there)


As for best in the world stakes, the thing I like about the Sydney aquarium is the totally enclosed rooms that have the massive tanks going over you. Thus you get sharks, sting rays and so forth swimming over and around you - which is pretty damn cool. So yeah it is great, particularly the other displays on marine history, and definately worth the visit. Most expensive single museum I've been too at €11 but paintings don't need to eat daily :P