Ask a cruising sailor what they remember from a season and it is rarely the marinas. It is the evenings: the anchor down, the wind gone soft, a drink in the cockpit, and the sun dropping into the water somewhere off the bow. A great sunset anchorage needs three things in my book. It must face roughly west so the sun sets over open water rather than behind a hill. It must hold well enough that you can relax instead of watching the chartplotter. And it must be calm enough overnight that you actually stay. Plenty of pretty bays fail the second and third tests. These are the ones, ranked, where I have sat through the best sundowner hours in France.
A word on the ritual the French call the apero, the sundowner drink that every cruising crew adopts within a week of arriving. The anchorages below are chosen as much for the half hour either side of sunset as for the night itself, so all of them open to the west or south-west. Pick your night by the forecast: the magic only works in settled weather, and a swell from the wrong direction will roll you out of any of them. For the wider lore of the evening drink at anchor, see my notes on the sundowner apero anchorage ritual.
1. Pointe du But, Ile d'Yeu
The single best sunset I have watched from a boat in France. The south-west tip of the Ile d'Yeu, off the Vendee coast, is a wild, preserved headland famous locally for its sunsets, and anchoring off in settled weather puts the whole western horizon in front of you with nothing between you and the dropping sun. The island itself is car-light and threaded with paths, so the morning after is as good as the evening before. It is a fair-weather, settled-forecast spot only, fully open to the west, so you watch the glass and you have Port-Joinville on the sheltered side as your bolthole. I cover the island in the Ile d'Yeu and Port-Joinville guide.
2. The Glenan archipelago
The Glenan islands off Concarneau enclose a shallow inner sea of white sand and water so pale it looks tropical, and on a calm evening anchored off Saint-Nicolas the sun sets across the lagoon and the whole anchorage turns gold. The holding is good in the sand off La Pie or in La Chambre, and in settled high summer this is one of the most magical places to lie in France. The whole archipelago dries and shoals dramatically though, so you do your depth homework before you swing. There is no shelter to speak of when the weather turns, so it is strictly a fair-weather overnight. I write it up in full as the Glenan archipelago anchorage.
3. Sauzon, Belle-Ile
Sauzon is one of the prettiest fishing and yachting harbours in southern Brittany, sheltered from the prevailing winds, and the anchorage and moorings outside the drying harbour look west across Quiberon Bay. The evening light on the pastel houses and the lighthouse is worth the visit on its own, and Belle-Ile has nine anchoring spots around the island so you can always find the lee. Sauzon dries inside, so visitors usually take a mooring or anchor off and dinghy in. It is a gentler, more sheltered sunset than the Glenan, and a good one for a first season. The island gets its own treatment in Belle-Ile-en-Mer sailing.
4. The Lerins islands, off Cannes
On the Riviera, the Lerins islands give you a rare west-facing Med anchorage with reliable holding. The seabed off Sainte-Marguerite is fine sand and posidonia with visibility up to 15 metres, and Bateguie Bay offers a sandy anchorage in 3 to 5 metres sheltered from the mistral. Anchor on the sand patches only, because the seagrass is protected and the fines for anchoring on it reach 150,000 euros. From here the sun sets behind the Esterel hills and over the bay, and Cannes lights up across the water as the sky goes pink. It is the most accessible sunset anchorage on this list for anyone chartering the Riviera. The approach is in the Lerins islands anchorage off Cannes.
5. The Bay of Saint-Tropez
Anchor in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, off Sainte-Maxime or in the bay, and the sun sets over the Massif des Maures behind the town with the whole glittering pageant of Saint-Tropez in front of you. It is not the wildest sunset on the list, far from it, but it is one of the most theatrical, and the holding in the bay is good on sand. You get the spectacle of the place without paying Saint-Tropez harbour rates, because you are swinging on your own anchor. Watch the seagrass here as everywhere on this coast. I cover the harbour itself, the part you visit by day, in Saint-Tropez by sea.
6. Camaret, Crozon peninsula
For a wilder, Atlantic sunset, the bay off Camaret at the tip of the Crozon peninsula faces west into the Iroise, and on a settled evening the sun goes down over open ocean beyond the Pointe de Pen-Hir. Camaret itself is a naturally sheltered harbour, so you have a secure berth a few hundred metres away if the wind gets up overnight, which on this exposed corner it can do quickly. That combination, a wide-open western horizon with a proper bolthole alongside, is rare and valuable. It also stages you perfectly for the tidal gates south. I cover it among the best sheltered harbours in Brittany.
7. The Iles Chausey
Off the coast near Granville lies one of the strangest and most beautiful anchorages in France: the Chausey archipelago, a scatter of low granite islets that the locals say number 365 at low water and 52 at high, such is the tidal range. On a settled evening, anchored in the Sound off the Grande Ile with the tide full and the sun setting across the water and the rocks, it is a sunset like nowhere else. The catch is the tide itself, which on these biggest-in-Europe ranges can leave you sitting on a different planet by low water, so you do serious depth and swinging-room homework before you settle. It is a fair-weather, well-planned overnight, not a casual drop, but the reward is one of the great evenings in northern France. The wider tidal context is in Brittany tides for Mediterranean sailors, which applies just as much to this corner of Normandy.
8. Porquerolles, the western anchorages
Back in the Med, the western end of Porquerolles off Hyeres faces the setting sun across open water, and anchoring off in the protected bays of this conservation island gives you a clean, calm sundowner with the Giens peninsula glowing in the distance. The water is the clearest on the mainland Med coast, the holding in sand is reliable once you avoid the seagrass, and the island behind you is car-free and beautiful. It works as both a swimming anchorage by day and a sunset anchorage by evening, which is the ideal combination. I cover the island in Porquerolles and the Hyeres islands.
Reading the evening right
Three habits make a sunset anchorage work. Choose your night by the forecast and never trust a west-facing bay in a building westerly, because the same aspect that gives you the sunset gives you the swell. Anchor early, ideally by mid-afternoon, so you have light to find clean holding and room to lay out proper scope before the crowd arrives. And always know your bolthole: every anchorage above has a sheltered harbour within a short hop, so when the glass drops you can move in the dark without drama. Get those right and the half hour after the sun touches the water becomes the part of the day you remember all winter. For the calmest Riviera options when the swell is the problem, my round-up of the calmest Riviera anchorages in swell is the companion piece to this one.
