For any parent whose newborn requires hospital care, the hardest part is often not the medical reality — it is the fear of being separated from their child. A new unit inaugurated at the Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace on Thursday 26th March is designed to ensure that separation is no longer part of the experience.
Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene opened the new parent-child unit in the presence of Christophe Robino, Minister-Counsellor for Social Affairs and Health, Benoîte Rousseau de Sevelinges, Director of the CHPG, and Dmitry Rybolovlev, whose patronage made the project possible.
The unit comprises four rooms conceived as genuine family cocoons — spaces that feel as close to home as a hospital can offer — where parents can remain with their vulnerable or closely monitored newborns around the clock.
A multidisciplinary team of nursery nurses, midwives, childcare auxiliaries and doctors supports each family throughout their stay, combining medical excellence with an approach built on warmth and reassurance.
The unit is the latest addition to the CHPG’s mother-and-child centre, which has been expanding its family-focused care in recent years.
Prince Albert II and Princess Charlène, accompanied by Princess Caroline of Hanover, attended the official reopening ceremony of the Jardin Exotique on Wednesday after six years of closure.Â
The ceremony included a blessing by Archbishop Dominique-Marie David and speeches by Mayor Georges Marsan, who has been closely associated with the project throughout.
Prince Albert and Princess Charlène visiting the garden, photo credit: MichaĂ«l Alesi, Prince’s Palace
The garden is now set to open to the general public on Monday March 30th, with a free preview opening scheduled for Monegasques and residents on Sunday March 29th, with a programme of animations and a fireworks display planned for the occasion.
“The Municipal Council’s ambition was to modernise the garden without stripping it of its identity,” said Mayor Marsan. “I am delighted that future generations will be able to discover it in their turn.”
During the official reopening of the garden, photo credit: MichaĂ«l Alesi, Prince’s Palace
Nearly a century in the making
The Jardin Exotique first opened in 1933 under Prince Louis II and was home to over 30,000 plants, many of them centuries old, drawn from the Americas and Africa.
However, since 1939, no significant structural work had been carried out. Thus, after nearly a century, serious weaknesses had begun to emerge. For example, artificial rock work was at risk of detaching, pathways had deteriorated, and the cliff-face setting required urgent and technically-demanding intervention. And so, the garden closed its doors in 2020.
The garden’s cliff-facing setting, photo credit: Monaco Life
“The works were complex, vertiginous, and at times perilous given the configuration of the site,” Mayor Marsan said at the ceremony. The challenge was to make it safe without damaging a plant collection that includes specimens no longer found anywhere else in the world.
What changed
Walkways and railings have been fully rebuilt, flooring and paths resurfaced, pergolas and viewpoints renovated, and lighting upgraded throughout.
New additions include a children’s play area, a picnic area, a birthday room for around 3° children, and a revamped ticketing area. The garden is also being made available for private hire such as weddings, receptions, and events with rates that climb steeply during Grand Prix weekend.
The only museum in Monaco with a bar
Perhaps the most unexpected addition is a snack bar and drinks terrace on the upper plateau, open to anyone without a ticket. In a principality not known for casual, affordable public spaces, having somewhere to sit with a drink and a view over Monaco – and no entry fee required – is genuinely novel. The bar, along with the boutique and toilet facilities, is freely accessible to all.
Pricing details and tailored packages
Ticketing ranges from €12 for adults, €6 for children up to to 17 years-old for garden entry only, to €18 for adults, €10 for children for access to the garden and observatory cave and botanical centre.
Because the cliff-face layout makes full access impossible for visitors with reduced mobility, entry will be free up to the point they can comfortably reach.
A commemorative plaque marking the reopening has also been installed on site, bearing the names of Prince Albert II and Princess Charlène in recognition of their presence at the ceremony.
The commemorative plaque marking the official reopening, photo credit: Monaco Life
The Club Suisse de Monaco hosted an economic evening at MoNa restaurant on 20th March, bringing together members of Monaco’s Swiss, German and Austrian communities for a discussion on the challenges facing European business and policy.
At the centre of the evening was Christian Freiherr von Stetten, a Swiss citizen and long-serving member of the German Bundestag who embodies a combination rare in German politics: an active entrepreneur who has held elected office for decades. He became self-employed in 1994 in Künzelsau while still a student and today runs a medium-sized business of around 200 employees — bringing direct commercial experience to his role as Chairman of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy of the German Bundestag and Chairman of the SME Parliamentary Group of the CDU/CSU faction, which counts 166 of its 208 members.
His perspective, shaped by the daily realities of running a business alongside his legislative responsibilities, gave the evening’s discussion an unusual grounding. He addressed geopolitical tensions, energy policy and structural growth challenges not only as a policymaker but as someone who experiences the consequences of political decisions first-hand — a combination that, as the evening’s organisers noted, is far more common in Switzerland than in Germany.
The gathering also reflected something beyond economics. Representatives of the Club Allemand International de Monaco attended alongside Club Suisse members, and Austrian Honorary Consul Laila Schlereth was among the guests — a cross-border gathering that the organisers described as a practical expression of European cooperation and shared responsibility at a moment of growing continental uncertainty.
The Club Suisse de Monaco, one of the Principality’s most longstanding associations, has long positioned itself as a forum for exchange between politics, business and society across national boundaries.
Photo: Arik Röschke (President Club Suisse de Monaco), Laila Schlereth (Honorary Consul of Austria in Monaco), Natalie Freifrau von Stetten (Entrepreneur), Christian Freiherr von Stetten (Entrepreneur and Member of the German Bundestag)
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