We have friends who live some of their time in St Tropez, but sensibly they are cruising the Arctic at present, clearly they know how to avoid the incredible heat! It was over 30 today, just the right conditions for a pair of stupid Englishmen to embark on their most adventurous walk yet!
Once again tendering into port, we headed off in the direction of the old town of Grimaud, which is just gloriously "Old France” complete with wiggly hillside streets, ancient church (C11 to start but a very chequered history since then) and of course the obligatory ruined fort, again initially C11 but added, destroyed, replaced, ignored and finally abandoned during the revolution, it is now recognised as having historic importance.
After a good wander we ran the gauntlet of no-pavement roads yet again as we headed down towards the coast and Grimaud Port. As an aside, the French, like the Italians, expect you to walk WITH the traffic not AGAINST like we Brits do, this has two ironic consequences - it’s not alway possible to know that there’s a vehicle or vehicles queuing behind you when walking as they are generally so quiet (even electrically silent) these days. There’s the additional problem on not knowing a cyclist is rapidly approaching, as they mostly don’t have bells, or choose not to use them so this causes additional mayhem when added to the above car scenario.
Moving on, we had to use an overpass complete with Spaghetti Junction like ramps, to get over a main road, thus causing even more mayhem, but if they won’t acknowledge the pedestrian, they are reaping what they sow. We finally arrived at the opposite extreme, Grimaud Port is not vehicle friendly at all, having been reclaimed from the sea in the 1950s and 1960s and a Venice-like housing complex has built around the 15 or so small islands created. It is quite lovely, with three ‘utility’ islands for shops, restaurants, the odd hotel, and then more select residential islands around the edges. In the central area was a church (turnstile entry!!) and a market square but this being rather fine, lets say an artisanal market selling items you didn’t know you wanted!
We looked around and rejected quite a lot of the eateries on grounds of quality or pretentiousness (too low, too high) but finally found the one that was just right, whereupon we ordered Goat’s Cheese salad (aka Cheese on Toast) and Moulês Frites, just perfect and a long time since I’ve had these, along with the now obligatory at lunchtime Mediterranean Pink!
Eventually we headed off via a circuitous route around some of the residential areas towards St Tropez, and did the required tour of this tiny port town. Not sure that it is now what it previously was, there’s so many mega yachts in the harbour I doubt the fishermen get a look-in. The shops are most certainly not designed for the locals, there’s even a House of Chanel (actually it was a mansion with gated security) and every other high-street name you’d expect on Fifth Ave or Regent St. Didn’t spot Harrods but it wouldn’t have surprised me!
We walked up to the citadel but decided not to bother, walked back down to the bijou bays and harbour, grabbed a cheeky Movenpick and then went to the tender port to be taken home, sadly bad timing as a coach party arrived and we had to wait for all them to faff around for a while before we got out, then a small yacht decided to make manouvres so we had to wait for them too, but eventually got out of the harbour. The swell had gotten up dramatically and I ended up holding steady an old lady and her many bags of shopping as we attempted to get back onboard the wonderful Sojourn.
Later we enjoyed a leisurely dinner in our favourite area of the MDR with Duawn serving us. We gave the sommelier Karlo, a hard time as ever, but the outcome was fairly satisfactory.
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