Lérins Abbey (pronounced [leʁɛ̃]) is a Cistercian monastery on the island of Saint-Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands, on the French Riviera, with an active monastic community. There has been a monastic community there since the 5th century. The construction of the current monastery buildings began around 1073. Today the monks cultivate vineyards and produce wine and liqueur.
Book your tour near
Lérins Abbey
Book Now
4.5
in partnership with
GetYourGuide.com
Gallery
Sponsored
Location
1 explorer visited this place
123 m
Monastère fortifié de l'abbaye de Lérins is a building on Île Saint-Honorat in the Bay of Cannes in the Alpes-Maritimes of France. Construction began in the late 11th century on the southern coast to protect the island and Lérins Abbey.
It was listed as a Monument historique in 1840.
205 m
Île Saint-Honorat is the second-largest of the Lérins Islands, about 1.6 kilometres off shore from the French Riviera city of Cannes. The island is approximately 1.5 kilometres in length and 400 metres wide.
Since the 5th century, the island has been home to a community of monks.
1.3 km
The Lérins Islands are a group of five Mediterranean islands off the French Riviera, in Cannes. The two largest islands in this group are Île Sainte-Marguerite and Île Saint-Honorat. The smaller Îlot Saint-Ferréol, Îlot de la Tradelière and Îlot de l'Ilon are uninhabited.
Administratively, the islands belong to the commune of Cannes.
The islands are first known to have been inhabited during Roman times.
The Île de Saint-Honorat bears the name of the founder of the monastery of Lérins, Saint Honoratus. It was founded around the year 410. According to tradition, Saint Patrick, patron of Ireland, studied there in the fifth century. Around 500, the community was led by Porcarius I. Around 732, the Abbot Porcarius II was killed during a Saracen raid.
In 1047 the islands were raided by pirates from Andalusia. Thereafter, a fortified monastery was built between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. The monastic community today lives in a monastery built during the nineteenth century.
The Île Sainte-Marguerite held a fortress where the Man in the Iron Mask was held captive for a time.
During the Thirty Years' War, Spain was in possession of the islands between September 1635 and May 1637, and built or rebuilt four fortresses on Santa Margarita.
In 1707 the Lérins were occupied by the English navy, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovell. This was done in order to block the military port of Toulon to help the army of Victor Amadeus II Duke of Savoy and his cousin Eugene besiege that city.
Under the French Revolution, the Île Sainte-Marguerite and the Île Saint-Honorat were renamed the Île Marat and the Île Lepeletier, after secular martyrs.
1.5 km
Île Sainte-Margueriteʁit]; French: Île Sainte-Marguerite, transl. Saint Margaret Island) is the largest of the Lérins Islands, about half a mile offshore from the French Riviera city of Cannes, situated in the Bay of Cannes. The island is approximately 3,200 metres in length and 950 metres across. Sainte Marguerite Island is the closest of the Lérins Islands to Cannes, just 700 metres from the Palm-Beach headland, and the most extensive, covering an area of 2.1 square kilometres. It reaches an altitude of only 27.6 metres in the north, near the fort.
The island is most famous for its fortress prison, entitled the "Fort Royal", in which the so-called Man in the Iron Mask was held for 11 years of his 34 years of imprisonment.
4.5 km
St. Michael the Archangel Church, Cannes is an Eastern Orthodox church in Cannes, France. It was built in 1894. The parish of the church has been, for most of its history, under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe, an exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople from 1931 until November 2018; in September 2019, the parish switched to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.