Saint-Tropez
You eat at one of only a dozen or so tables by the swimming pool in a flower-filled courtyard in which it is impossible not to get caught up in the romance of it all. This is a great place to stay, too, if you are lucky enough to bag one of the handful of rooms, each of which is like a secret hideaway, just what you need to escape the frenetic activity in the town’s tiny streets.
True, the town’s mayor has some elaborate plans to ease the congestion. He wants to improve the access road, for example, and provide more underground car parks on the outskirts of the resort.
One day you may even be able to arrive by helicopter at the new heliport planned, Monte Carlo-style, so the noisy machines can approach over the sea and so avoid upsetting the cocktail-hour conversation on the terraces of the multi-million pound villas and smart hotels.
For now though a boat it has to be, so take a tip -- unless of course you own one or have well-off nautical friends -- and check in to the stylish Hotel Le Beauvallon, facing St Trop across the bay in St Maxime, from where you can skim across to the heart of the town in eight minutes flat in one of the free “navette” speedboats which are provided for guests.
Mind you, the facilities here are so outstanding you may find yourself content just to stay put. The hotel is a terracotta-coloured delightful Belle Epoch creation, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Carlton in Cannes, just along the coast.
There are 58 rooms and 12 suites, all of them beautifully furnished with more than a hint of the Far East, no doubt influenced by the hotel’s owner who hails from that part of the world. The best are those at the front with views directly across the bay.
Tear yourself away from the main building with its stylish bars, restaurants and health club, even its own cinema where you sit in former Cathay Pacific first-class chairs, and head through a tunnel to the sea and the hotel’s private beach Club.
This is the perfect place for lunch al fresco in the terrace restaurant right by the water, then a long soak in the sun either on the private beach or by the spectacular pool.
It would be a shame not to explore St Tropez properly as well, though. In spite of its continuing popularity it does still managed to retain much of the character which made it famous.
So far there are few fast-food joints, though I notice a couple of American ice cream parlours have set up shop on the harbour front, there are no UK-style pubs offering fried breakfast and tea like mother makes and there are mercifully few high-rise buildings.
The highest building you will see is the 16th-century citadel, now home to the maritime museum.
Seek out the Place des Lices, where the village men still play petanque (boules) each afternoon, and you may imagine you have gone back in time. Sit outside one of the cafes with a glass of pastis and you will soon realise just why this part of France is so popular.
After dark the town takes on a completely different persona as the queues form outside, Les Caves du Roy, the nightclub at Le Byblos, which has reigned supreme for the past 30 years as the place everyone wants to be.
The decor is over-the-top oriental, the drinks are expensive and the music is loud but this is where you simply must be seen but never before midnight, arriving too early is so unchic.
The final arbiters of access here are the very large bouncers, specially imported from Senegal where they obviously grow them big. But even after you get in to Les Caves du Roy there is a strict pecking order to be observed. The merely rich and beautiful have to stand by the bar or circulate, the seriously wealthy and really well known get a place at a table but only the billionaires and the superstars get to sit in the VIP section right ahead of you as you go in.
This is where Naomi Campbell sometimes celebrates her birthday with high-profile friends such as Donatella Versace, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis. This is the place to spot the Gucci- and Ferragamo-clad lovelies and their playboy escorts, sipping their brandy sours -- Napoleon brandy naturally.
Love or hate the glitz, the ostentatious display of wealth and the posing of the wannabees, it will be a very long time indeed before St Tropez is consigned to the filing cabinet drawer marked “has-been resorts”.
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Byblos Hotel Review
Added 2008/06/24 @ 12:23:34
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