France Guide
The Côte d'Azur
Ste-Honorat
Owned by monks almost continuously since its namesake and patron founded a monastery here in 410 AD, St-Honorat, the smaller southern island of the Iles de Lérins, was home to a famous bishops' seminary, where St Patrick trained before setting out for Ireland. The present abbey buildings date mostly from the nineteenth century, though some vestiges of the medieval and earlier constructions remain in the austere church and the cloisters. You can visit the church, but there is no access to the residential part of the monastery unless you're staying there on a spiritual retreat. A shop sells the sought-after white wine and liqueurs produced by the 28 Cistercian brothers of the monastic community. Behind the cloisters on the sea's edge stands the eleventh-century fortified monastery.
There's one small restaurant near the landing stage (open April– Oct only), but no bars, hotels or cars: just vines, lavender, herbs and olive trees mingled with wild poppies and daisies, and pine and eucalyptus trees shading the paths beside the white rock shore.