Description of the attraction
Ile Saint-Marguerite is the larger of the two Lérins islands that rise from the sea a kilometer south of the Croisette. The piece of land is small, but incredibly beautiful. One episode of its history is familiar to everyone: it was here that the most famous prisoner of France, the Iron Mask, languished.
The islet three kilometers long and 900 meters wide was inhabited by Ligurian pirates back in the 6th century BC: it was convenient to control sea routes from it. In the II century BC, the Romans came here, Pliny the Elder wrote about the Roman city and port on the island. But at the beginning of the 5th century, due to an earthquake, the Lerins Islands partially sank into the sea, the only source of fresh water disappeared, the Romans left.
In the Middle Ages, the crusaders built the chapel of St. Margaret of Antioch here. It was probably then that the island got its current name. There is, however, a legend that he was named after another Margaret, the sister of Saint Honorat, who settled on a neighboring island in 410 and founded a large monastery there. There is no scientific evidence for the legend.
In 1612, the Duke de Chevreuse became the owner of the island - he began to build the Royal Fort here. At the end of the 17th century, Fort Royal became a well-guarded prison for state criminals. In it, from 1687 to 1698, a man in an iron mask was imprisoned, whose name is still unknown.
You can get to the island by boat from the Old Port. There is a tiny village (two dozen fishing houses), Fort Royal has been turned into a youth hostel, and the Museum of the Sea is also located there. The main exhibit of the fort is the chamber in which the Iron Mask spent twelve years. There are two cemeteries nearby - the veterans of the Crimean War and the soldiers of the Second World War who died in North Africa.
On the eastern and western ends of the island, you can see curious defensive devices of the late 18th century: furnaces for producing red-hot kernels. They were installed here in 1793 by order of General Bonaparte, the future Emperor Napoleon. In the furnace, the nuclei were heated to a red glow, and they were dragged to the guns with special tongs. Once in the attacking ship, the red-hot core set off a fire. Seeing the smoke from such a furnace, the captains of the ships preferred to evade the battle.
The island is covered with a varied and very beautiful and fragrant forest - pine trees, the oldest in Europe eucalyptus trees, mastic pistachios, in the underbrush - heather, myrtle, gorse. There is a rich botanical garden, but now it is the private property of the Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya. Due to winds and storms, tree trunks are bent in the most extraordinary way. The coast is rocky, there are coves, convenient for swimming, with pebble beaches. There is a walking trail through the whole island, any means of transport are prohibited here. It is also forbidden to smoke on the island, but in some places it is allowed to have picnics. You can also have a snack in two local restaurants.
The only sound that breaks the local silence is the deafening singing of cicadas. It is impossible to believe that the Croisette is noisy just a kilometer away.
