Insight Guides Pocket French Riviera by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, French Riviera
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2018-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Bird’s-eye view of Port-Grimaud

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If you are pressed for time, head straight for Grimaud, at its best in the late afternoon, where you can look out to sea through Provençal lotus trees and enjoy a drink in a café. Grimaud was the fiefdom of Gibalin (Ghibelline) de Grimaldi. The fortress ruins lie in piles of stony remnants against a grassy hill. A sign warns of the danger of falling rocks, but you can take a look at the simple, barrel-vaulted 11th-century Templars’ church (this is a restored version) and the arcaded charterhouse.

Port-Grimaud, 6.5km (4 miles) downhill on the bay of St-Tropez, is the modern French version of Venice. Designed by François Spoerry and opened in 1964, it is a series of artificial canals built on marshland, lined with houses and flowered terraces painted in the same cool pastel shades as St-Tropez.

Deep in the heart of the Maures, 25km (15 miles) west of Grimaud, Collobrières is an attractive village where the speciality is marrons glacés (sugared chestnuts). On the way, you might want to visit the Chartreuse de la Verne (Wed–Mon June–Aug 11am–6pm, Sept–May until 5pm, closed Jan and on days of high fire risk, tel: 04 94 48 08 00 to check), a Carthusian monastery on a remote hillside. Built out of local schist and green serpentine, the monastery, with its huge grain store, chapel and individual monks’ cells, was founded in 1170 but abandoned after the French Revolution; it is now home to a community of nuns.

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