Photo: Tobi 87 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Grimaldi family took Le Rocher — the rocky promontory — by guile in 1297, a Genoese dressed as a Franciscan friar talking his way through the gate. They've held it ever since: 700 years of one family ruling a fortified town 60 metres above the Mediterranean. Walk the Old Town's narrow lanes, see the Palace, visit the Cathedral where Princess Grace is buried, and stand at the Oceanographic Museum carved into the rock itself.
15 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Download on wi-fi before you set off — keep the screen open while it saves — then add it to your home screen so you can find it again. It works in airplane mode, with no roaming charges. Show me how to save it →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 8 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 7 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The 13th-century fortress turned palace, the parade ground in front, and the Changing of the Guard. The Grimaldis have lived here since François Malizia's 1297 conquest.
The 1875 Romanesque-Byzantine cathedral where Princess Grace is buried and where the principality's monarchs are crowned. The Saint-Martin gardens cling to the cliff edge alongside.
The medieval lanes of Monaco-Ville, the Oceanographic Museum carved into the cliff by Prince Albert I (1910), and the panoramic walks along the 60-metre cliff edge.
Built on the site of a 1191 Genoese fortress. François Grimaldi captured it on January 8, 1297, dressed as a Franciscan friar — a story commemorated in the Grimaldi coat of arms with two friars holding swords. The palace has been in the family ever since.
Built of white stone from La Turbie. Houses the tombs of Monaco's princes, including Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace Kelly (who married him in 1956 and died in a car accident on the road below in 1982).
Carved into the cliff face by Prince Albert I, an oceanographer who funded his own scientific expeditions. The building rises 85 metres directly from the sea. Jacques Cousteau directed the museum from 1957 to 1988.
The parade ground in front of the Palace, where the Carabiniers du Prince perform the Changing of the Guard. The cannonballs displayed at the edges are gifts from Louis XIV. The view from the parapet covers Monte-Carlo, the Port, and Italy in the distance.
Mediterranean garden of cypresses, agaves, and olives along the southern cliff. The 1894 statue of Prince Albert I in oceanographer's gear faces the sea. The path connects the Palace to the Oceanographic Museum at the rock's southern tip.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 15 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each narration connects what you can see to the Grimaldi survival story — Genoese, French, Spanish, French again, independent. The Rock is a fortress whose walls are now invisible. The borders are still real.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Built for the cruise-day or stopover walker. About an hour, with the climb to Le Rocher front-loaded, then a flat circuit. Concise narrations that cover seven centuries without the textbook recitation.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1 hour audio total, but you walk at your own pace. 15 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.
GPS-triggered audio tours for heritage sites worldwide.