French Riviera

• Region: Cote d'Azur, Saint-Tropez east to Menton, southern France
• Scale: about 110 km of coast, roughly 55 nautical miles by sea from Saint-Tropez to Monaco
• Core season: June to September, with May already busy for the Grand Prix and the film festival
• Main harbours: Port Hercule (Monaco), Port Vauban (Antibes), Vieux Port and Port Canto (Cannes), Port de Saint-Tropez
• Largest berths: the IYCA quay at Port Vauban, with berths quoted up to 150 m and 165 m
• Port Hercule: about 760 berths, depths in the pool from 2.5 m to over 50 m
• Saint-Tropez limits: 90 m maximum on the Mole Estienne d'Orves, 50 m in the old port, 4 m maximum draft
• Anchoring: prohibited on Posidonia seagrass for all vessels over 24 m across the French Mediterranean
• Extra duty over 45 m: an anchoring plan must be declared to the local semaphore before dropping
• Penalty exposure: fines up to EUR 150,000 and exclusion from French waters (decree 157/2024, 23 May 2024)
• Air access: Nice Cote d'Azur, around 30,000 business aviation movements a year, 7 minutes by helicopter to Monaco
• 2026 show weeks: Cannes Yachting Festival 8 to 13 September, Monaco Yacht Show 23 to 26 September

The shape of the coast

The usable Riviera is short. Saint-Tropez to Menton on the Italian frontier is about 110 kilometres of shoreline, and roughly 55 nautical miles by sea from Saint-Tropez to Monaco. At a 20 knot cruise that is under three hours end to end. Cannes to Antibes is about 11 miles, Antibes to Monaco under 20, Nice to Monaco a nine mile run. Nothing on this coast is a passage.

A realistic week: base at Antibes or Golfe-Juan, lunch at anchor off the Iles de Lerins, take a night off Villefranche, spend one evening stern-to in Monaco and no more, then run west for Pampelonne and a night in the Baie des Canoubiers. Two weeks is hard to fill on the French coast alone, and most owners break out. Calvi in Corsica is about 100 nautical miles from Nice, and Portofino sits roughly 85 miles east of Monaco. Either gives the boat somewhere to be in the second week without the August berth fight.

The harbours worth a night

Port Hercule in Monaco is the address, with about 760 berths and depths inside the pool running from 2.5 metres to more than 50. Yachts well over 100 metres lie there all summer and during show week the harbour is solid. Port Vauban in Antibes holds the largest capacity on the coast, and its IYCA quay, known to everyone as the billionaires' quay, has berths quoted up to 150 and 165 metres. Cannes offers the Vieux Port beside the Croisette and Port Canto at the eastern end of the bay.

Saint-Tropez is smaller than its reputation suggests. The Mole Estienne d'Orves takes vessels to 90 metres, the old port is capped at 50, and the whole harbour is limited to 4 metres of draft, which quietly rules out a lot of modern displacement hulls. Booking above 18 metres runs through the port's Magelan e-resa system, and the harbourmaster often confirms only on the morning of arrival. Golfe-Juan and Nice give useful overflow within a short run of Cannes and Monaco.

Distance is never the problem on this coast, and a berth in August always is.

The anchorages that earn a day

The Rade de Villefranche is the best natural anchorage on the coast, a deep bay between Nice and Monaco with shelter from the west and a tender run of minutes into a working village. Off Cannes, the channel between Sainte-Marguerite and Saint-Honorat gives flat water and pine shade ashore, with a monastery on the smaller island that still makes and sells its own wine. Off Saint-Tropez, Pampelonne is the classic day anchorage, open to the east and backed by the beach clubs. The Baie des Canoubiers just north of the town is the better overnight option when the wind goes south.

West of Saint-Tropez the coast changes character. Cap Taillat and Cap Camarat give clear water and almost no development, and the Baie de Cavalaire has room for a large yacht to swing. In an easterly this whole coast turns uncomfortable and the fallback is the lee of the Lerins or a berth. A boat at anchor here moves at least once on a typical day.

What a 50 metre yacht can and cannot do here

Depth is rarely the constraint here. Availability is. Only a few dozen berths on the whole coast take a 50 metre boat in August, and most are held on annual contracts by owners who secured them years ago. An owner without a home berth depends on an agent working the cancellations, and peak-week rates in Monaco are among the highest anywhere in the world. Many boats of this size hold a contract in Antibes or a nearby Italian port and day-cruise into the hotspots.

At anchor the rules bite hard above 24 metres. Anchoring on Posidonia seagrass is prohibited for all vessels over that length across the entire French Mediterranean, and the meadows cover much of the sandy shelf between the surface and about 35 metres. Yachts over 45 metres carry a further duty to contact the local semaphore in advance and declare where they intend to drop. Fines run to EUR 150,000 under decree 157/2024 and a vessel can be excluded from French waters. Crews work from the Donia and Nav&Co apps, which map the meadows and the restricted zones.

The mistral and the month by month picture

The summer here is settled by Mediterranean standards. June brings warm air with the sea still catching up, July and August are hot and often windless by day with a light thermal breeze in the afternoon, and September holds warm water until the first autumn fronts arrive late in the month. May is pleasant ashore and cold in the water, which matters if guests expect to swim.

The wind that defines the coast is the mistral, a cold northwesterly that funnels down the Rhone valley and out over the Golfe du Lion. It hits the western end hardest, so the Golfe de Saint-Tropez feels it far more than Monaco does, and it can blow for three days at a stretch. It also leaves the best visibility of the year behind it. A summer easterly is less common and turns the open anchorages off Cannes and Saint-Tropez untenable.

The weeks that are already spoken for

Several weeks are effectively closed to a casual arrival. The Monaco Grand Prix in late May fills Port Hercule with yachts rafted along the quays for a grandstand view of the circuit, at rates set for that weekend and booked a year out. The Cannes Film Festival in May does the same to Cannes on a smaller scale. In 2026 the Cannes Yachting Festival runs 8 to 13 September across the Vieux Port and Port Canto, and the Monaco Yacht Show follows on 23 to 26 September in Port Hercule.

The show weeks cut both ways for an owner. If the boat is for sale or for charter, September is the reason to be here at all, because the brokerage world comes to the yacht. If it is not, those are the weeks to spend in Italy or Corsica, since both Cannes harbours and the whole of Port Hercule go over to the exhibitions and the surrounding berths absorb the displaced fleet. Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez in late September has the same effect further west.

Nice airport, and the road that ruins transfers

Nice Cote d'Azur is the reason this coast works for owners with limited patience. It handles around 30,000 business aviation movements a year through a dedicated terminal, and it sits nine nautical miles from Monaco and a few minutes' drive from Antibes. The helicopter transfer from the airport to Monaco takes seven minutes against forty-five by car on a clear day. Cannes Mandelieu takes smaller jets and turboprops and is closer to the Cannes harbours.

On the ground the coast road is the weak link. The Basse Corniche between Nice and Monaco can take an hour in high summer for a distance a tender covers in twenty minutes, and the approach to Saint-Tropez from Sainte-Maxime is regularly gridlocked in August. Well-run boats move guests by tender wherever the destination is on the water and keep cars for the inland trips to Eze, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Grasse.

Restaurants, beach clubs and the evening

Dining is the centre of a Riviera summer and the standard is genuinely high. Monte Carlo holds the Louis XV at the Hotel de Paris, Le Grill on the roof and the Yacht Club de Monaco for members and their guests. Antibes has a serious market in the Cours Massena and a run of small restaurants in the old town that the industry uses year round. On Pampelonne the beach clubs, Club 55 among them, run a booking system that expects the boat's name and a tender arrival at a set time.

The nightlife is concentrated and expensive. Monte Carlo runs on the Casino square, Jimmy'z and the summer terraces, Saint-Tropez on Les Caves du Roy and the beach clubs that become evening venues. Cannes is quiet outside festival weeks. The scene rewards owners who enjoy being seen and want a full diary, and it is somewhat wasted on those who came for the swimming. Guests wanting a quiet week are better served across the border in Liguria.

Tax, support and the honest downside

France is in the EU customs union and the Schengen area, which shapes crew movement, VAT treatment and the structure of any commercial operation. Charter from a French port carries French VAT on the hire, and the rules on where a charter may begin and end have tightened, so this is agent and lawyer territory. Antibes holds the densest concentration of superyacht trades in the world, La Ciotat and Marseille sit within a day's run for refit and lift, and most parts can be found the same day.

The honest downside is crowding and cost. In August the water between Cannes and Monaco is genuinely busy with ferries, day boats, jet skis and tenders, and the good anchorages are taken by mid-morning. Berth prices at the top marinas are the highest in the Mediterranean and are quoted per metre with a season multiplier owners routinely underestimate. The Posidonia rules have cut the number of legal anchoring spots at exactly the moment demand rose. Owners who want wilderness will not find it here.

Who it is for: An owner who wants the industry, the restaurants and the September shows within a tender ride, and who has either secured a contract berth or accepted that the boat will day-cruise from Antibes.