June 3-9, 2026

Technology is great until it isn’t. This is the second time I’ve written this blog, which explains the even longer-than-usual delay in posting it! So, without further ado… Monaco!

Wednesday morning we flew down to Nice, which is the closest airport to Monaco. There are trains between the two, but for ease we opted for an Uber. It’s important to note that if you are actually stay in Monaco – Uber will not take you all the way there due to local restrictions.

However, since we were staying on the French side – we didn’t have any issues getting dropped off at our Airbnb. Our Airbnb wasn’t great – but thankfully we were only staying there for the one night. (It did have a killer view of the sea). Thank goodness our second Airbnb was really nice that we stayed at through the weekend.

I’m talking the bedding and pillows were hanging on the balcony still drying and we had to make our own bed once it dried around midnight. The desk had a step ladder to be used as a “chair.”

Once we dropped our bags we scurried off to meet our friends, Kim and Craig at a restaurant on the Monaco side. It was about a 30-minute walk through winding streets and lots of staircases that involved being glued to our phones to make sure that we didn’t get lost. We did have to backtrack a few times because roads and sidewalks were closed down due to the race.

While walking to the restaurant, Andy whispered, “I think that’s Carlos Sainz” (one of my favorite F1 drivers). I was so focused on my phone that by the time I looked up – the moment was lost. But I was able to confirm that yes, indeed. It was Carlos Sainz and his dad coming back from the beach (or perhaps a pool?). A lot of the drivers live in Monaco due to lack of taxes, so they are all over town.

This was only going to be the beginning of celebrity (and F1 sightings) for the weekend! Things were quickly getting blocked off for the weekend. As we continued to the restaurant there were some of the race car trailers staged which closed off a whole section we needed to walk through resulting in us climbing through a bush to get to the restaurant. Literally.

We finally got to the restaurant! We had a great catch up with Kim and Craig – we hadn’t seen them since the previous September in London and it was fun to get to reunite in a new location. After dinner, they gave us a tour of the circuit and where their boat was located. It gave us a head start for the weekend so we knew where to go when the events kicked off.

We picked our Airbnb based on its location, we were staying in Cap-d’Ail which was about a 25 minute walk to the race. It was significantly cheaper staying there than in Monaco, but was much easier to get to the race than those that were staying in Nice. There is a train that goes between Nice and Monaco, but we heard the wait can be hours since that is where the majority of fans stay. We watched helicopters and water taxis going back and forth all day delivering people. Our walk was nice, we even met a couple of corgis!

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If you’ve never watched a Formula 1 race before, the weekend is about much more than Sunday’s race.

Friday starts with two practice sessions, when the drivers test their cars and fine-tune their setups. Saturday has one final practice before qualifying, which determines the starting order for Sunday’s race.

And in Monaco, qualifying is especially important.

The streets are incredibly narrow, and passing during the race is notoriously difficult. Starting position can make a huge difference, so watching the drivers push their cars around the tight corners and inches from the barriers during qualifying is pretty incredible.

Then, of course, comes race day.

The cars fly through the streets of Monaco, past the harbor, through the famous tunnel, and around corners where there seems to be absolutely no room for error. (I’m talking inches, if that).

TV makes Formula 1 look exciting, but being there is a completely different experience.

You can hear the cars before you see them. You feel them coming through the streets. And then they disappear around the corner almost as quickly as they arrived.

It was absolutely unreal.

Kim and Craig have wrist bands that grant you access to different areas because they stay on a boat in the harbor. This means you get to see where drivers and celebrities alike are getting dropped off by water taxi on the Red Bull jetty. Because the streets are all closed down, it would take over an hour to get from one side of Monaco to the other, so water taxis are the fastest way to get around.

It was incredible to see the camera crews line up to see who was getting off the different boats. By the end of the weekend, I swear I had whiplash from trying to see who was coming our way too!

We didn’t get to meet all of our favorite drivers, but we did get to see quite a few of them. We had to practice taking selfies with others (in case our favorites eventually came out later!) and also got to see a bunch of other athletes like Lindsay Vonn and Eileen Gu (who weren’t as well known in Europe). Anyone who is anyone wants to be seen there, and we were right there waiting.

One of my first selfies was with George Russell – one of the Mercedes drivers. I was so excited to take a picture with him that I actually turned my phone off instead of hitting the button to take the picture. Kim witnessed the whole tragedy, but thankfully I got another opportunity to get a selfie later in the weekend.

We didn’t buy tickets for the whole weekend – just the first two practices and qualifying. The seats were great for both days – and on race day we were able to watch the race off of a large monitor from the Red Bull structure.

This was definitely one of the most chaotic races filled with loads of drivers that had trouble with their cars and probably the same amount with penalties. In the end, one of the youngest drivers, Kimi Antonelli ended up winning which we liked.

Craig and I broke away from the group for a bit as we saw Kimi and his team jump into the harbor after the race – it was a pretty fun experience to witness in person! One of those moments that has you wondering, Is this actually real life?!

We had dinner that night with Kim and Craig before parting ways. Our flight had gotten adjusted and we had a pretty early wake up the next day to get back home. We hope to see them again in January, but if not our fingers are crossed that after their trip to Alaska we can connect with them again next summer.

Between the Formula 1 race, the harbor, the celebrities, the chaos of trying to navigate the streets, and getting to experience it all with good friends, it was exactly the kind of trip that makes you want to come back.

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-Toronto