The Tamesis
As the heart of the classic French Riviera becomes increasingly crowded and overpriced, it’s worth exploring the Var coast further west – past Saint-Tropez, the perennial poster child of the Var, which has since suffered the same fate – to coasts where the charm of the Riviera remains intact. To understand the Vaal Coast, you must first understand what it is not.
As most people imagine, the main center of the French Riviera is essentially a narrow strip of Alpes-Maritimes, which includes popular towns like Nice, Cannes, and Antibes. It’s compact, sparkling and easy to digest, Nice Airport is France’s third busiest airport, bringing together travelers from all over the world, and the Riviera Railway, one of Europe’s most beautiful scenic routes, stitches the coast together stop after stop. In short, it’s a machine built for the travel industry. In contrast, the Vaal Coast has no such infrastructure. Toulon has an airport but fewer international routes and reliable rail lines stretching eastward, abandoning the coastline here and retreating inland.
Most of the Vaal remain indifferent to the glitz and glamor that the East has perfected. It doesn’t have Monaco, a sovereign city-state created out of sheer ambition, where grand prix races take over the streets. It doesn’t have the Cannes Film Festival, just two weeks of red carpet theatre. There are generally fewer palace hotels. Michelin stars are becoming increasingly rare. There are even fewer superyachts (outside the summer circus of St. Tropez, anyway).
But what the Var has to offer is an almost embarrassing wealth of natural beauty – from Port-Croix National Park, to the rust-red ridges of Estrel, to the silence of Monte Morais, to the Isle of Gold sparkling in the impossibly blue ocean just offshore, and to vineyards stretching all the way to the coast, producing some of France’s most underrated wines. Much of this is protected landscape, and tourism data reflects this restriction. Here you can immerse yourself in Riviera life without the shows, find a quieter environment and somehow feel more indulgent.
From a new wave of design-forward hotels to unpretentious seaside villages, wild nature, scenic islands and a buzzing arts and cultural scene, the Var is on the cusp of its own unique moment. It also happens to have slightly warmer and sunnier weather year-round than its eastern neighbor, thanks to its more sheltered location and some benevolent local microclimates. A small but telling bonus.
Pull up a chair on the portside terrace in Bandol and order a glass of wine while you wait for the ferry to cross – this small appellation in the harbor town has a reputation for making red wines from Mourvèdre that have unusual structure and aging value for the region. One of the most anticipated hotels in southern France this summer, the Zannier Ile de Bendor hotel on the island of Zannier Île de Bendor is only 7 minutes away by private boat for hotel guests and 7 minutes by public ferry for day visitors, opening this month after a five-year transformation.
