The colourful Christmas trees of St Tropez. Photo by Carol Mac Photography How I imagined summer in St Tropez to be: convivial yacht parties, scorching sun, and the expectation that if you're there, you have a lot of money. How I discovered winter in St Tropez to be: lonesome shrouded empty yachts, persistent rain, and the expectation that if you're there, you have a lot of money...
We'd decided to take the coast road there from Cannes, thinking it'd be a quick and pleasant sea-lapped run, only to discover that the mountains come very close to the shore in this part of the Mediterranean, and most of the time we were rounding sharp bends high above the slightly foggy coastline. Not only was in winter, it was also Sunday, so we pretty much had the road, as well as the little places we drove through, to ourselves. Such a vast contrast to the seething hordes of sun-seekers who must flock there in the warmer months, but still appealing in its own way.
By the time we finally arrived in St Tropez, the light was fading, yet finding somewhere to park was still a problem, and the rain was still coming down, making our attempted walk with the dogs from the centre of town to the waterfront a brief and curtailed venture. A small coffee and an equally small beer in the cafe directly opposite the parking spot where were were finally able to dump the van turned out to cost more than we had left in change, so out came the trusty credit card. The coffee alone cost 5 euros and 40 cents - steeper even than London prices!
Having shelled out for such overpriced drinks, we decided to take the non-toll roads back to Mouans-Sartoux, imagining them to be as easy to navigate as the miles and miles of dead-straight rural roads we'd encountered in northern France. How wrong could we have been? After climbing and descending two mountains in the dead of night, shrouded in fog and with steep drops on either side of the narrow, twisting road, I've never been so relieved to see civilization again, or to knock back a stiff brandy or two when we eventually arrived home late in the evening.
I know I said I'd be writing about my attempts to break into the live music scene here on the Riviera, but what I'm discovering is that, for my kind of music at least, such a scene doesn't really seem to exist in southern France. Disappointing definitely, but it hasn't stopped me continuing to hope that something along those lines may yet present itself...
We'd decided to take the coast road there from Cannes, thinking it'd be a quick and pleasant sea-lapped run, only to discover that the mountains come very close to the shore in this part of the Mediterranean, and most of the time we were rounding sharp bends high above the slightly foggy coastline. Not only was in winter, it was also Sunday, so we pretty much had the road, as well as the little places we drove through, to ourselves. Such a vast contrast to the seething hordes of sun-seekers who must flock there in the warmer months, but still appealing in its own way.
By the time we finally arrived in St Tropez, the light was fading, yet finding somewhere to park was still a problem, and the rain was still coming down, making our attempted walk with the dogs from the centre of town to the waterfront a brief and curtailed venture. A small coffee and an equally small beer in the cafe directly opposite the parking spot where were were finally able to dump the van turned out to cost more than we had left in change, so out came the trusty credit card. The coffee alone cost 5 euros and 40 cents - steeper even than London prices!
Having shelled out for such overpriced drinks, we decided to take the non-toll roads back to Mouans-Sartoux, imagining them to be as easy to navigate as the miles and miles of dead-straight rural roads we'd encountered in northern France. How wrong could we have been? After climbing and descending two mountains in the dead of night, shrouded in fog and with steep drops on either side of the narrow, twisting road, I've never been so relieved to see civilization again, or to knock back a stiff brandy or two when we eventually arrived home late in the evening.
I know I said I'd be writing about my attempts to break into the live music scene here on the Riviera, but what I'm discovering is that, for my kind of music at least, such a scene doesn't really seem to exist in southern France. Disappointing definitely, but it hasn't stopped me continuing to hope that something along those lines may yet present itself...
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