Packing A Punch

Here’s how to do Monaco right in 2019.

- Uday Benegal

On November 24 last year, blood spilled in the Casino de Monte-Carlo. I wish I’d been there to witness it. I arrived in the two-square-kilometre nation of Monaco just two days later to hear about how Russia’s Denis Lebedev duked it out with the US’ Mike Wilson in the casino’s grand Salle Médecin room. Roulette and blackjack tables had been cleared out to accommodate a ring where the two prizefighters set out to break ribs for big winnings. Not to mention, entertain the 400-something crowd of high rollers in attendance. Bruisers in the gambling world’s most hallowed halls were hardly what I expected to hear about in this coastal playground for the spectacularly rich.

Monaco is indeed rife with the sybaritic escapes the Riviera is famed for: Michelin-starred restaurants, luxury sports cars and super-yachts. But I discovered that there were other avenues that didn’t require you to role-play either James Bond or a visiting head of state. I was there to attend the Monte-Carlo Jazz Festival, which, along with jazz luminaries like Gregory Porter and Bobby McFerrin, was hosting a special collaboration between the iconic British jazz guitar player John McLaughlin and the Carnatic virtuoso and Bollywood singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan at the gorgeously opulent Palais Garnier.