Plan a 7-day French Riviera charter itinerary from Monaco to Saint-Tropez: the 2026 Pampelonne anchoring zones, Posidonia rules, event weeks and a sample week.
A 7-day French Riviera charter itinerary usually runs the 60 or so miles between Monaco and Saint-Tropez, taking in Cap Ferrat, Antibes, the Îles de Lérins off Cannes and Pampelonne Bay. The passages are short — often under two hours — and the infrastructure is the best in the Mediterranean, which is exactly why the week is harder to plan than it looks.
On this coast the constraints are berths, anchoring zones and the events calendar, not distance. This guide covers how crews sequence the week, the anchoring rules that changed in 2026, and where Guest Trip removes the spreadsheet stage.
The season runs May to early October. May and June carry the two events that consume every berth on the coast — the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May and the Monaco Grand Prix at the end of it — and September is widely held to be the best month of the year: warmest water, thinner crowds, and Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez at the start of October. The Monaco Yacht Show in late September fills Port Hercule with exhibitors rather than charter guests, which matters if Monaco is on your route.
Conditions are generally benign, but two things catch crews out: the mistral, which funnels down the Rhône valley and makes the western end of the coast uncomfortable for a day or two at a time, and ferry and traffic wash in the anchorages off Cannes and Saint-Tropez. Zero-speed stabilisers earn their keep at lunch stops here.
1. Sequence the week around the berths you can actually get
Monaco, Saint-Tropez's Vieux Port and Cannes in festival season are the hardest berths on the coast. Confirm them before you promise a day to guests, and build in the alternative: Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu for Monaco, Golfe-Juan or Marina Baie des Anges near Cannes, and Port Grimaud or an anchorage off Pampelonne when Saint-Tropez is full. A week that assumes berths it does not hold is a week of apologies.
2. Know the 2026 Pampelonne zones before you promise the bay
Pampelonne Bay was re-zoned by prefectural decree (n°177/2026) with effect from 24 June 2026. The western anchorage, previously for vessels of 45 to 80 metres, now falls to yachts of 24 to 45 metres and sits inside a ZMEL managed mooring zone; yachts over 80 metres have a dedicated area separate from the 45-to-80-metre zone; and vessels under 24 metres may not anchor inside the buoyed mooring areas. Official charts have been slow to catch up with the new boundaries, so the current decree, not the plotter, is the reference.
3. Treat Posidonia as the default, not the exception
Anchoring on Posidonia seagrass is prohibited along the French Mediterranean coast, and the enforcement on this stretch is active. The practical routine is the same everywhere between Menton and Hyères: check the seabed on the Donia app or the official mapping before choosing the spot, drop on sand, and log the position. Where a ZMEL mooring field exists, use it — increasingly it is the only lawful way to spend the day in the best bays.
save the sand patches you have verified as custom locations with their own pins, and reuse them across every Riviera itinerary.
4. Use the Lérins and Cap Ferrat as the quiet counterweight
The Riviera reads as a string of towns, and a week of nothing but towns exhausts guests. The Îles de Lérins off Cannes, the coves under Cap Ferrat, Cap Taillat and Cap Camarat south of Saint-Tropez, and the Estérel red rocks between Cannes and Saint-Raphaël are the anchorages that make the week feel like a charter rather than a shopping trip. Pair each big evening ashore with a quiet morning at anchor.
5. Decide early whether Porquerolles is in or out
Porquerolles and the Îles d'Hyères are the best natural cruising of the region, roughly 35 to 40 miles west of Saint-Tropez. That is a half-day each way, so it works as a one-way week finishing at Hyères or as a ten-day charter, but shoehorning it into a Monaco round trip costs two days of steaming. Decide at the brief, not on day four.
6. Layer the onboard programme onto the route
Provision in Antibes or Nice, where the supply chain is excellent and lead times are 24 to 48 hours. Plan the formal dinners for the marina nights, the beach club lunches for Pampelonne and the Lérins, and put the spa on the days at anchor. The deck needs to know where the toys can go: many of the Riviera bays are speed-restricted and busy with tender traffic.
spa, room service and activity modules can be switched on per yacht with opening hours, so guests only request what the crew can deliver.
7. Publish it as a live page
This is a coast where a mistral, a berth that falls through or a guest's dinner reservation can move a day at short notice. Publish the itinerary as a guest site the crew can edit rather than a PDF that dates the moment the plan changes.
Day 1. Embark Monaco; short hop to a Cap Ferrat cove for a swim; welcome dinner aboard. Under 1 hour. Day 2. Villefranche and Cap Ferrat; afternoon ashore in Saint-Jean; evening in Monaco or Beaulieu. Under 1 hour. Day 3. West to Antibes: Cap d'Antibes anchorage, provisioning, dinner in the old town. About 2 hours. Day 4. Îles de Lérins: Saint-Honorat and Sainte-Marguerite, lunch at anchor; evening in Cannes. Under 1 hour. Day 5. Estérel coast swim stop en route to Saint-Tropez; evening in the Vieux Port. About 3 hours. Day 6. Pampelonne Bay (check the current ZMEL zone for your LOA); beach club lunch; Cap Taillat swim. Under 1 hour. Day 7. Morning swim off Cap Camarat; disembarkation in Saint-Tropez or Golfe de Saint-Tropez. Short hop
Total steaming for the week is around 60 to 70 nautical miles. A round trip to Monaco adds a half-day; extending west to Porquerolles adds a full day each way.
Yes, but only in the zone matching the yacht's length under prefectural decree n°177/2026, effective 24 June 2026. Yachts of 24 to 45 metres use the ZMEL western mooring zone, 45 to 80 metres and over 80 metres have separate areas, and vessels under 24 metres may not anchor inside the buoyed mooring areas.
Yes. Anchoring on Posidonia meadows is prohibited along the French Mediterranean coast. Check the seabed on the Donia app or official mapping before dropping, and use ZMEL mooring fields where they exist.
Roughly 60 nautical miles along the coast, typically split over four or five days with stops at Cap Ferrat, Antibes, the Îles de Lérins and the Estérel. Direct, it is a half-day passage.
September, for the warmest water and thinner crowds. May and June are dominated by the Cannes Film Festival and the Monaco Grand Prix, when berths are scarce and expensive.