Visiting Monte Carlo Masters on a Budget

So, I’ve previously written about traveling for sporting events, it’s something I tend to do at least once a year, and it’s normally either tennis or rugby. After a two-year break – for obvious reasons – I finally got back on a plane and headed out for the Monte Carlo Masters tennis event.

If you don’t know the Monte Carlo Masters is one of the warm-up events for the French Open and is a really popular event among the top seeds for a couple of reasons.

• It’s one of the earliest clay court events in the calendar
• Many of them live or have a place in Monaco
• Tax breaks on the winnings from this event

So, a lot of the best players in the world head for this event. However, as it’s not a Grand Slam event, the tickets are a lot cheaper and you’re likely to get a lot more for your money. On the flip side, Monaco and the French Riviera are notoriously expensive, especially in mid-April when the Easter break is happening.

There are a few ways that my friend and I made this trip work on a budget. Let’s find out more.

Time

First up, we did not have a lot of time in Nice or Monaco because of work. All in all, we flew in on Sunday evening and left on Tuesday late afternoon. That’s because we’re going on a bigger trip later in the year (look out for that!) and wanted to save our holiday allocation.

With this being the case, we didn’t have to fork out for loads of meals out, excursions, and accommodation costs. We also didn’t see a whole lot of Nice or Monaco. We had an exploration around Nice’s Old Town and the beach after the tennis and made a pilgrimage across town for the gluten-free bakery (my friend is coeliac), but this wasn’t a sightseeing trip. We came for the tennis and everything else was extra.

Flights

Our flights were probably the most expensive and most annoying part of this trip. Honestly, I’m not normally this restricted by dates, especially considering the weekend that we were traveling on was in the Easter holidays and towards the beginning of the summer flight schedule. As a rule, I tend not to travel in school holidays, it’s too expensive and too busy.

After tracking our preferred flights on Google Flights, we knew we were going to be flying out of our local airport (Liverpool) and flying back into Manchester, which is only an hour down the road but it’s a much bigger airport. We watched them for slightly too long and missed the boat on the cheap return ticket and ended up flying from Liverpool to Nice and Marseille to Manchester.

The price difference between flying back from Nice to Manchester and the transport necessary to get to Marseille plus the cheaper ticket and the more sociable flight time made it a no-brainer, but also a very long day. The Omio app was definitely a very good friend to us that day!

It’s not for everyone, but it was good to know we had multiple airport options which did save us a lot of money versus buying a return ticket from Manchester.

AirBnB

As there were two of us, we went for our standard small AirBnB plan. Monaco was so expensive and there weren’t a ton of affordable restaurants, so we stayed in neighbouring Nice. We did look at private rooms in hostels but honestly, they weren’t as cheap. Instead, we opted for a small studio apartment on the harbour.

This meant that we were in a great spot to explore Nice, was super close to the train station for Monaco and the airport trams, and had supermarkets all around us.

It was a super nice, clean little apartment that was perfect for the base that we needed. At the end of the day, we were there to sleep and nothing else.

Tickets

Honestly, we bought the Monte Carlo Masters tickets almost a year before we bought anything else. It was the pandemic and we needed something to look forward to.

Using our learnings from going to Wimbledon repeatedly and the French Open, we knew that we wanted to go to one of the opening days of the tournament while all the big names were still in the draw. We opted for tickets on the second biggest court which only cost us 30 euros for the entire day, which was like six hours of tennis.

In our ticket, we had access to every court except the main court, but honestly, we got some amazing matches, including one of our favourites, Diego Schwartzman. We could’ve bought cheaper passes, but really this worked for us and our budget.

Transport and Transfers

I’ve already touched on the fact that we spent a lot of this trip on public transport and working out the logistics, so let me share my newly acquired know-how.

Getting from Nice airport to the city is super simple, you just need to head out of the arrivals terminal and jump on one of the trams. We were on Line 2 which stopped all through the city and ended at the harbour.

We got the train from Nice Riquier station to the temporary station that’s opened specifically for the Monte Carlo Masters. Both these stations were quieter and calmer than the main ones in each place and were closer to where we were. It’s worth remembering that the tournament is on the other side of the bay to Monte Carlo’s main station, and although there are free shuttle buses, these take 30 minutes and the extra stop is 5 minutes tops.

Finally, getting from Nice to Marseille Airport was a slog. We jumped back on the L2 tram to the airport, swapped onto a BlaBlaBus that we’d pre-booked for around 3 euros that took us to Marseille train station. From here we jumped on the train to the airport and waited for the free shuttle to the terminal. The Marseille Airport train station is about a 5-10 minute shuttle to the airport itself and a 30-minute walk, so account for this! We checked all of these on Omio before we left to make sure we could make it in time!

Food and Drink

Okay, now to the good stuff. We didn’t have long in the south of France, but we made sure that we knew exactly what we wanted to eat before we left home. This is an occupational hazard of traveling with a coeliac – you have to check out the GF places so that she doesn’t die.

Of course, the French Riviera meant one thing to the pair of us and that was seafood. A couple of clicks later my friend had found this hole-in-the-wall place that sold moules mariniere in a saffron, garlic and cream sauce – completely GF. We were sold. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted, it was huge, and the whole thing included a glass of house wine was just 12 euros.

When we were at the tennis in Monte Carlo, it was expensive. We knew it would be going in, so we hit up the supermarket in Nice before we got the train. You can take in food, but you can’t take in glass bottles or alcohol. A glass of wine was 10 euros and it was about half a small glass. Not worth it, but you get to keep a tennis-themed glass.

So, here’s how we kept to a relatively tight budget on a trip that was centered around Monte Carlo – one of the most expensive places in Europe. What are your best budget tips? Share them below.