Hercules Port is a natural bay at the foot of the ancestral rock of the princes of Monaco. It is one of the few, if not the only deep-water port of the French Riviera.
It was used as a trading port by the Greeks and Romans but had the disadvantage of being poorly sheltered from the easterly winds. This prompted the erection of two piers in the early twentieth century which went some way to providing better protection.
More recently, at the instigation of HRH Prince Rainier III, studies were conducted in the 1970s to better protect the stretch of water by placing, before the two existing piers, a new sea wall and a lee breakwater intended to provide the port with full protection from the swells of the eastern sector.