The lore of the late Princess Grace, the fabled casino, a royal family that provides regular scandal for the tabloid press, and the chance to watch the rich and famous are what lure the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come here every year.

"I think it could lose a few of the skyscrapers," said Laura Fallowfield, a Londoner who stopped off for a few hours in Monaco along with a friend during a motoring holiday along France's Mediterranean coast.

Almost every available inch of the principality, which is smaller than New York's Central Park, has been built on. There are some beautiful 19th- and early 20th-century buildings, but mostly the skyline is dominated by bland modern structures.

But Fallowfield has not come for the architecture.

"We came to see the playground of the rich and famous. I'd like to come and spend a serious amount of money here, stay on a yacht, go to the opera, gamble at the casino. That's the way to see Monaco," she said.

Curiosity, not monstrosity
Jennifer Logan, a singer from the Scottish capital Edinburgh, said she was here to soak up the strangeness of a state that has been ruled by the same royal family, the Grimaldis, more or less continuously since 1297.

"It's not a monstrosity, it's a curiosity," she said, as she stood on a terrace overlooking a port packed with luxury yachts.

"The idea that a family is in control of this niche in the middle of Europe, the idea that it has so little to do with the outside world. It's quaint."

The head of that family, Prince Rainier, died last Wednesday, and his bachelor son Albert (47) is now in charge of the state's affairs.

Most tourists fit in a few hours in Monaco during a tour of other places of interest on the Cote d'Azur, which stretches from Marseille to the Italian border. But figures for 2003 from the Monaco tourist office show that 670 000 people stayed overnight in the principality.

"It's sometimes a very ugly city, but interesting. It's culturally interesting. But it's a culture for the rich," said Alf Nagel, a nurse in an old people's home in the German city of Bochum.

The main interest for the rich these days, apart from the posh hotels and restaurants, is the state's booming banking and financial sector, which has drawn accusations that Monaco is a centre of money laundering.

But the most ostentatious display of wealth can be seen at the casino, which when it first opened in 1856 catered mostly to Europe's aristocracy but now throws open its doors to the gambling rich from across the globe.

Another high-profile tourist attraction is motor racing. The Monte Carlo rally was launched in 1911, and in 1929 the first Monaco Grand Prix was held.

The "Rough Guide to Provence and Cote d'Azur", which delivered the "monstrosity" verdict, has little positive to say about Monaco. But that is unlikely to bother many of the principality's 32 000 residents, nor to deter many visitors.