Prince Albert I was a serious scientist — he ran oceanographic expeditions, mapped currents, and founded this institute in 1910 to hold what he brought back. Jacques Cousteau directed it for over thirty years.
The building is the exhibit as much as the collection: an enormous stone façade rising straight out of the cliff above the sea, with the aquarium in the basement and the historic collections — whale skeletons, brass instruments, specimen jars — upstairs.
The roof terrace is open to ticket-holders and has one of the best views in the country.
Do the top floors first. Most visitors go straight to the aquarium and run out of attention before the part that makes this place unusual.
Musée Océanographique in pictures
