A short way off the noise of Cannes, on a flat green island barely a mile and a half long, a community of monks has been praying since the fifth century and making wine for the last hundred and fifty years. Saint-Honorat is the smaller and quieter of the two Lerins islands, and unlike its neighbour it has no village, no beaches lined with sunbeds, no bars. It has a monastery, eight hectares of vines, a coastal path, one restaurant, and a stillness that feels impossible given how close the glitz of the Croisette lies across the water. For a sailor it is one of the most rewarding day stops on the whole Cote d'Azur.
I came the first time for the anchorage and stayed for the wine. Both deserve a proper look.
A working monastery, not a museum
The Abbey of Lerins is a living Cistercian community. Around twenty monks live here, and the place runs to the rhythm of their day, not the tourist's. That shapes everything about a visit. There is no admission charge to walk the island and visit the abbey church, but you are a guest in someone's home, so the dress code is modest, voices stay low, and the monks ask that you respect the times of prayer. The fortified monastery on the southern shore, a square keep rising straight out of the sea, dates from the eleventh century and was built so the monks could shelter from Saracen raids. You can climb it for a view across to the mainland.
The contrast with Cannes is the point. You leave a town built on conspicuous display and twenty minutes later you are on an island where the loudest sound is the cicadas and the bell for vespers.
The vineyard and what they make
The monks farm eight hectares of vines, which they name after saints rather than plots. The whites come from Clairette, Chardonnay and Viognier; the reds from Syrah, Mourvedre and Pinot Noir, the last an unusual grape to find this far south. They have been making wine here for around 150 years, and these are serious bottles, not pious souvenirs. Production is small, the work is done largely by hand, and the prices reflect both the quality and the rarity: expect to pay well into the tens of euros a bottle, with the top cuvees considerably more. They also make liqueurs, the Lerina among them, and olive oil.
You can buy the wine at the abbey shop, and the monks run tastings among the vines on the first Friday of each month, weather permitting, with the return shuttle included in the package. If you are aboard your own boat you have the run of the island anyway, but the organised tasting is the only way to drink the wine where it grows.
Walking the island
Saint-Honorat is about 1,500 metres long and 400 metres wide, covering some 40 hectares. A coastal path runs right around it, shaded by eucalyptus and pine, and the full circuit takes around 40 minutes at a gentle pace, longer if you stop to swim off the rocks or sit in the chapel ruins scattered along the shore. It is flat, easy walking, suitable for anyone. There is one restaurant, La Tonnelle, near the jetty, open for lunch only and closed from January to mid-February. Otherwise bring your own picnic, which most crews do.
Getting there by boat
This is where having your own keel pays off. The official Planaria ferry, run by the monastery itself, leaves from the Quai Laubeuf in Cannes; 2026 return fares run at 19.50 euros for adults, 18 euros for teenagers, 12 euros for children aged 4 to 15, and free under 4. That is the route for the day-tripper without a boat.
You do not need it. You can anchor off Saint-Honorat in settled weather and dinghy ashore, which turns a rushed ferry visit into a leisurely day. The holding and the best spots are part of the wider picture I set out in my guide to the Lerins islands anchorage off Cannes, which covers both Saint-Honorat and its larger neighbour Sainte-Marguerite, where the Man in the Iron Mask was held. Read that before you commit to an overnight, because the channel between the two islands and the exposure to swell both matter.
Note that anchoring rules along this coast have tightened to protect the seagrass beds, so check the local zoning and use the moorings where they are laid rather than dropping the hook on posidonia.
A little history to carry ashore
The island matters out of all proportion to its size. Honoratus founded the monastery here around the year 410, and within a century Lerins had become one of the great schools of the early medieval church, training bishops and saints who fanned out across western Europe. Saint Patrick is traditionally said to have studied here before he went to Ireland. For centuries the island was rich and powerful, then sacked, abandoned, sold off after the Revolution, and at one point owned by an actress who used the monastery as a holiday villa. The Cistercians returned in 1869 and have held it since, which is when the modern winemaking began.
Knowing a little of this changes the walk. The scattered chapels you pass on the coastal path are not ruins for ruins' sake; they mark fifteen hundred years of people choosing this flat green rock over the mainland a mile away. The fortified monastery you can climb was built because that wealth made the island a target. History sits very lightly here, but it is everywhere underfoot.
Practical notes for the day
A few things worth knowing before you go ashore. There are no shops on Saint-Honorat beyond the abbey boutique, no fresh water for the taking, and no public bins of any size, so carry off what you carry on. Swimming is from the rocks rather than beaches, and the water around the island is clear and deep close in. The island can be busy in the middle of a summer day when the ferries land their crowds, but they thin out by late afternoon, and an evening anchored off with the abbey bell carrying across the water is something the day-trippers never get.
Dogs are not allowed on the island, and nor is camping or any kind of overnight stay ashore, since it is private monastic land. Keep that in mind if you have a ship's dog aboard; one of the crew will need to stay with the boat or the dog stays aboard for the visit.
Fitting it into a cruise
The Lerins islands sit in the bay of Cannes, a short sail from the marinas of the central Riviera, which makes Saint-Honorat an easy addition to a wider cruise. Crews tend to pair it with the towns along this coast: Antibes old town and the Picasso Museum is just across the bay, and a day or two further east lies Nice old town from Port Lympia. The island works as a calm counterpoint to those busier stops, a place to swim, walk and taste wine before rejoining the crowds.
A day at Saint-Honorat for me means anchoring off in the morning, walking the coastal path before the heat, a swim, a picnic or lunch at La Tonnelle, an hour in the cool of the abbey church, and a bottle of the monks' Syrah carried carefully back to the boat. If you cannot get the boat across, the monastery shop sells the wine in Cannes too, and the abbey website lists the current vintages and prices, but it is not the same as carrying a bottle off the island where the grapes grew. The whole appeal is the journey: a short hop from one of the loudest towns on the coast to a place that has deliberately stayed silent for fifteen hundred years.
Few shore excursions in France manage to combine sailing, walking, history and a genuinely good cellar in such a small space. The monks have been getting it right for fifteen centuries, and they ask very little of the visitor in return beyond a little quiet.
