Discover the Gulf of Saint-Tropez

The Citadel has overlooked the village since 1602–1607, built on the medieval castle motte to repel Barbary raids and enemy fleets. Six bastions, a hexagonal keep, and one of the finest 360° views over the Gulf.

Inside, the Maritime History Museum — one of the most complete in the south for the 17th–19th centuries — tells the story of Tropezian privateers, trade with the West Indies and Indochina, and village sailors who became officers of the French Royal Navy.

Worth noting —Go at sunset: the light on the ochre roofs is what every painter has tried to capture — and what no camera quite renders.

Where does the village name come from? From Saint Torpès, a Roman officer converted to Christianity under Nero, beheaded in AD 68 in Pisa. The legend: his body is set adrift in a boat on the Arno with a rooster and a dog (who do not touch it — hence the miracle). The boat drifts across the Mediterranean and lands exactly where the village will rise.

The Tropezians have venerated this saint since the Middle Ages. His reliquary bust is kept in the parish church and brought out each year for the Bravade in May.

Worth noting —The rooster and the dog appear all over local iconography — keep an eye on old shop signs.

In 1956, Roger Vadim shoots And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot, aged 21. The film, scandalous for its time, turns a fishing village into a global myth within six months.

BB moves to La Madrague in 1958 — a small pink house facing the sea, which she buys for 80,000 francs. She still lives there, surrounded by a hundred or so animals. In 1986, she founds the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for animal welfare.

Before Bardot: a quiet port frequented by Colette (who wrote Break of Day there as early as 1926) and Boris Vian. After: Saint-Tropez as we know it — the good, the mythical, and the overrun.

Over three days in May (16–18), Saint-Tropez transforms. Since 1558, the Bravade commemorates the legend of Saint Torpès and the role of Tropezians in coastal defence under François I.

The bravadeurs, in 18th-century red and blue uniforms, parade in companies armed with real muskets, escort the saint's reliquary bust through the streets, fire blank salvoes at every crossroads, and close with the blessing of the sea. The whole thing is led by the Capitaine de Ville, elected for a year.

Worth noting —One of the last great popular rituals in the south, alive and non-touristy. Sensitive ears, beware — the muskets are loud.

Port Grimaud is a lakeside town imagined by Alsatian architect François Spoerry from 1966, on former salt marshes. Instead of a standard tourist complex, he invented a village where every house has its own dock and boat.

Inspirations: Italian fishing villages, the canals of Amsterdam, the fishermen's wharves of New England. The result: 7 km of canals, 2,400 houses with Provençal roofs, a modern church designed by Spoerry himself — and a 20th-century Heritage listing in 2002.

Worth noting —The coche d'eau water shuttle (15 min, running continuously) is still the best way to grasp the architecture. The view from the canals is essential.

Above Saint-Tropez, two villages listed among the Most Beautiful Villages of France:

• Gassin — the "balcony of the Côte", a medieval layout on a 200-m crag, with 360° views from the bay of Cavalaire to the Maures massif, and on a clear day all the way to the Alps. One main street, tiny squares, almost no cars.

• Ramatuelle — a labyrinth of spiral alleys around a fortified church. Gérard Philipe (Le Cid, Fanfan la Tulipe), a French cinema heart-throb who died at 36 in 1959, is buried there. A simple stone grave, in the north cemetery.

Worth noting —Both are 15 minutes by car from the port. Combined, they make a perfect half-day — sunset at Gassin highly recommended.

Pampelonne, 5 km of fine sand between umbrella pines, became THE jet-set beach in the 1960s. Club 55 — founded in 1955 by Bernard and Geneviève de Colmont — originally served meals to Vadim's film crew during the shoot of And God Created Woman. It still exists, understated and iconic, run by the founders' children.

Since 2019, a redevelopment plan has sharply reduced the beach huts to give the coast back to the public. Many legendary places have disappeared or moved; others have been rebuilt in wood to blend into the landscape.

Worth noting —Off-season (October to April), the beach turns wild again. The walk to Cap Camarat is quiet, with almost no one around.

Before cinema, Saint-Tropez lived on maritime trade and fishing. The Bailli de Suffren (1729–1788), great admiral, is the local hero — five naval battles won against the British in the Indies, a near-French Nelson. His statue by Joseph-Toussaint watches over the port.

The real Tropezians (the Pointus, named after their pointed-bow traditional boats) still play boules on Place des Lices at sunset — a non-negotiable ritual. The Sénéquier café, with its red terrace on the quay since 1887, remains their gathering point, even as tourists have colonised it.

Worth noting —Early in the morning (before 9 a.m.), the port still belongs to the fishermen. It's the only moment you see the real Saint-Tropez.

In 1892, neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac arrives by boat in Saint-Tropez and falls in love with the light. He buys La Hune, a house on the port, and invites his friends: Matisse comes in 1904 (and paints Luxe, calme et volupté there), then Bonnard, Dufy, Manguin, Camoin, Marquet, Vlaminck.

Without them, Saint-Tropez would have stayed an anonymous port. The Musée de l'Annonciade, opened in 1922 in a deconsecrated 16th-century chapel, gathers their works — one of the finest post-Impressionist collections outside Paris.

Worth noting —Don't miss: Saint-Tropez, le port by Signac (1899), La Place des Lices by Camoin (1925), and the Bonnard room upstairs.

Place des Lices — the beating heart of everyday Saint-Tropez, shaded by century-old plane trees. Market on Tuesday and Saturday mornings: market gardeners from the Var, goat cheeses from Plan-de-la-Tour, soaps from Cogolin, anchoyade, honey from the Maures.

In the afternoon, Tropezians play boules on the packed earth — implicit rule: don't disturb, just watch. Café des Arts (now Le Café) on the square, Sénéquier on the port — all these institutions have been run by the same families for three generations.

Worth noting —On Saturday mornings, second-hand booksellers set up a few tables in the shade. You can still find original editions of Vian and Colette there — both regulars in the 1950s.

Late September to early October, Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez: 300 sailing yachts, from 1930s J-Class to modern maxis, race in the Gulf for a week. Born in 1981 from a wager between two owners (a Swan and a 12-Metre), it has become THE event of Mediterranean yachting.

The port turns into an open-air showroom: you can walk right up to the hulls, the guards leave you be. In the evening, the crews take over the bars on Quai Suffren, with Sénéquier leading the way. Yacht brunches, gala dinners, and drone-filmed regattas.

Worth noting —Hotels booked six months ahead. If you're there in September, watch the start from the Citadel — unbeatable view over the bay.

South of Pampelonne, Cap Camarat raises its 1837 lighthouse 130 m above the sea — one of the tallest in mainland France. From the Escalet car park, the coastal trail follows the coves for 7 km to the bay of Pampelonne.

Turquoise water, wild inlets, coves accessible only on foot. The Briande cove and the Escalet beach are among the finest snorkelling spots in the Var. Marine life still well preserved — grouper, sea bream, octopus.

Worth noting —Allow 2 hours one way, closed shoes (rocky trail), plenty of water. Sunset from the lighthouse: unforgettable.

Behind the coast lies the Maures Massif — 600 km² of Mediterranean forest, chestnut, cork oak and rockrose, peaking at 779 m. The word "Maures" comes from the Greek mauros (dark) — seen from afar, the forest looks black.

At the heart of the massif, the Chartreuse de la Verne, a monastery founded in 1170, abandoned in 1792 during the Revolution, restored from 1968. Today occupied by a monastic community, open to visitors (closed Tuesdays). Snaking architecture in local green stone.

Worth noting —The panoramic D14/D558 road between Collobrières and Grimaud crosses the massif — mandatory stop in Collobrières for marrons glacés, a local speciality since 1893 (Maison Corréard).

AOC Côtes de Provence — the rosé that conquered the world (90% of local output). Onion-skin colour, red-fruit and citrus nose, made for the deep chill and southern cooking.

Around the Gulf, several emblematic estates: Château Minuty (Gassin, founded in 1936), Château Léoube (Bormes-les-Mimosas, Roussel-Bamford estate), Domaine Tropez (Ramatuelle road), Caves d'Esclans (the Whispering Angel cuvée that exploded on the US market).

Worth noting —Most estates run tastings or vineyard lunches. Book ahead. May–June is the best window — fewer crowds, vines in bloom.

15 August 1944 — Operation Dragoon. Saint-Tropez is one of the first towns liberated in the Provence Landings, two months after Normandy. Commandos of the 1st French Army, supported by the local Resistance, take the Citadel by storm.

48 hours of fighting, the port partly bombarded. The liberation marks the start of the push up the Rhône and the link-up with the Normandy forces. A commemorative plaque at the foot of the Jean Réveille pier recalls the event.

Worth noting —15 August remains a public holiday lived intensely: fireworks, parade, ceremony at the war memorial. Living memory, not folklore.