This was published 5 years ago
St Tropez, France: Guide to a slow drive along the French Riviera, from Nice to St Tropez
A view over Cannes.
Brigitte Bardot, here I come. The famously humid Levant wind is blowing through my grey hair. The deep-blue Mediterranean is on my left. The road ahead to St Tropez twists and turns. This could be a Bond movie, if only I'd brought my tuxedo and Walther PPK.
I've wanted to visit St Tropez since I saw Bardot in And God Created Woman, directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim. Vadim transformed the teenage Bardot into an international superstar, and turned an impoverished fishing village into an international "must-visit" destination. For the next 30 years, St Tropez was the epitome of chic.
Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance in 1963's New Wave drama film, Contempt.
Suddenly, I had found myself in Nice with a free Sunday. So I hired a car (all the E-Type Jags were booked, seriously) and set off in a Renault Megane (at least it's French) on one of the world's classic motoring adventures.
Any fool can drive from Nice to St Tropez in less than two hours. Take the A8/E80 toll road to Roquebrune-sur-Argens and turn south on N555 to St Maxime. But where's the romance in that?
I'm here to realise a younger man's dream. Time changes us all, and Bardot – like me – has seen better days. She's now a reclusive and "eccentric" animal rights advocate, once ordering the castration of a male donkey because he'd "sexually harassed" her female donkey.
Travelling the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) to Nice.Credit: Alamy
My Renault comes with GPS, but as I set off from Nice's historic Promenade des Anglais, there's no need to program it: just keep the Med on the port side. The fabled coastline from Nice to St Tropez is a mere 125 kilometres. Most guide books recommend dividing it over two, preferably three, days. That is especially true between June and September. But I only have a day, and I'm here in the golden month of October when the crowds have gone.
So, let's drive.
7.30AM, NICE TO ANTIBES, 23 kilometres, allow 45 minutes
A railway bridge on the Cote d'Azur.
The beautiful town of Antibes, with its 16th-century ramparts and cobbled streets, is linked to a host of famous names, including Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and Graham Greene.
The town's 14th-century Chateau Grimaldi was Picasso's studio in 1946 and he produced 23 paintings and 44 drawings while he was there. Now it's the Musee Picasso. The Spaniard donated several works to it, notably La Joie de Vivre – one of 240 paintings, ceramics, carpets, drawings and etchings.
Les Residences des Fleurs on Rue Pasteur overlooks Antibes port, and was Greene's one-bedroom apartment for 24 years. The author of Our Man In Havana, The Third Man, and The Quiet American arrived in Antibes in 1965, tipped off by former colleagues in MI6 that he would be jailed for tax fraud if he didn't leave Britain immediately. Greene lived here with his final mistress, Yvonne Cloetta. Most days they lunched at Cafe Felix, by the archway to the port, where Greene habitually drank a dry martini and a bottle of a local wine of which he was particularly fond.
The red rocks of Massif de l'Esterel.
Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc is one of Europe's most seductive hotels and F. Scott Fitzgerald based Hotel des Etrangers in Tender Is the Night on it. If you're wondering why the address is Boulevard JF Kennedy, the future US President stayed there in 1938, when he was 21.
9.30AM, ANTIBES TO CANNES, 13 kilometres, allow 30 minutes
"Crass", "commercial" and "conceited" are some of the words used to describe Cannes. It is also, of course, synonymous with cinema. The first Cannes Film Festival was planned for September 1939 but Hitler intervened. Everyone's a critic.
Rue de la Republique in Antibes.
I enjoy a croissant and cafe au lait, then set off to promenade "La Croisette", the city's beachfront boulevard.
Cannes may have the best film festival on the planet, but there's no disguising the ugliness of its main venue, Palais des Festivals et des Congress. How do those paparazzi make this red carpet look so attractive?
About 200 metres further along the boulevard you'll come across Vieux Port, permanent home to some of the least-used mega-yachts in the world.
On the way back, look for the famous twin cupolas atop either end of the Carlton InterContinental. They were supposedly inspired by the breasts of the Spanish-born actress and courtesan Carolina Otero, lover to both Nicholas II of Russia and Edward VII, who became known to history as La Belle Otero.
11AM, CANNES TO THEOULE-SUR-MER, 13 kilometres, allow 40 minutes
Theoule-sur-Mer is a small medieval town located on the Golfe de La Napoule. The bay has nothing to do with Napoleon, but was thus named because Theroule was once the port of La Napoule – an inland town now of little consequence.
Theoule-sur-Mer is also the transition point between two iconic Cote d'Azur landscapes: the bays and ocean vistas outside Nice and the famously ruddy and rocky mountain landscape known as the Massif de l'Esterel.
NOON, THEOULE-SUR-MER TO ST RAPHAEL, 29 kilometres, allow 60 minutes
If you want to bail out of the scenic route, now is the time to do it. Follow the signs for the A8 and you'll be in St Tropez in time for lunch, but you'll miss the best part of the drive.
The cliff-hanging road weaves its way through villages and bays clinging to a mountain landscape that eventually appears Mars-like. The towering red hills are home to some of the most beautiful treks in Europe.
1:30PM, ST RAPHAEL TO ST MAXIME, 24 kilometres, allow 45 minutes
F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have written The Great Gatsby while living in St Raphael, but despite its jazz-age credentials l it's something of a Cote d'Azur also-ran. Most motorists head inland (via Frejus, with its Roman ruins) but it's worth persevering. The coastal road in the area shows you graphically why this is called "the Riviera". Every few minutes you cross a bridge over a raging stream emanating from the Alps.
2:30PM, ST MAXIME TO ST TROPEZ, 14 kilometres, allow 60 minutes
Whatever route you take from Nice, you'll have to drive this short section around the Golfe de St Tropez to reach your goal.
4PM, FINAL DESTINATION, ST TROPEZ
It's a blissful autumnal Sunday afternoon, and I'm even more keen to eat than to meet Bardot. There is a restaurant still serving nearby so after consulting the menu I order in my imperfect schoolboy French: "Table d'hote, s'il vous plait".
The waitress answers in impeccable English: "Of course. You look as if you've come a long way. Would you like a mini carafe of house wine with that?"
This might not be the three-Michelin-starred Plage de la Bouillabaisse or Auberge des Maures, both in St Tropez and favoured by the likes of Charlie Chaplin and David Niven, or Au Caprice des Deux, which is famous for its Provencal cuisine. It is, however, full of French-speakers, and my meal of pork loin with apple and pomme frites is delicious, local and good value.
Once digested, I continue my search for Bardot. The search takes me past the crowded fashion parade on the Vieux Port, up the slope to Pre des Pecheurs and onwards from Plage de Tahiti to Plage de Pampelonne – the topless beach most associated with Bardot. Sadly she's nowhere in sight. Her loss, surely?
Steve Meacham travelled at his own expense.
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drive-france.com is a useful (if somewhat UK-centric) website with a checklist of things you'll need and tips on car hire in France.
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