Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum

The Honfleur audio-guided tour presents you with the Maritime Museum, set in the former Saint-Étienne church, which retraces the maritime history of the city.

A church become a setting for maritime heritage

The museum occupies the former Saint-Étienne church, a Gothic building constructed between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Deconsecrated during the Revolution, the building served as a naval store before becoming a museum in 1976; the idea however went back to 1899, when the Society of Old Honfleur gathered models and objects linked to the sea. Inside, one discovers the maritime history of the city through navigation instruments, maps, paintings and above all ship models, of which the most impressive, La Nymphe, an eighteenth-century frigate more than two metres long. These collections, enriched by families of local sailors and carpenters, concretely tell the life of the seafaring people.

What there is to see

The Maritime Museum charms as much by its setting, a former Gothic church at the edge of the dock, as by its collections: ship models, navigation instruments and objects of maritime life. The frigate La Nymphe is its centrepiece. It is a choice stop for families and lovers of the sea, which well sums up the port soul of Honfleur.

Practical information

The Maritime Museum is at the edge of the Vieux Bassin, in the former Saint-Étienne church, in Honfleur. It can be visited according to opening hours to be checked on site; access is generally subject to a charge.

In what building is the museum located?

In the former Saint-Étienne church, a Gothic building of the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries, deconsecrated during the Revolution.

What is the centrepiece of the museum?

La Nymphe, a model of an eighteenth-century frigate more than two metres long.