Pouting sexpot Brigitte Bardot came to St Tropez in the '50s to
star in Et Dieu Créa la Femme (And God Created
Woman; 1956) and transformed the peaceful fishing village
overnight into a sizzling jet-set favourite. Tropeziens have
thrived on their sexy image ever since: at the Vieux Port, yachts
like spaceships jostle for millionaire moorings, and infinitely
more tourists jostle to admire them.
Yet there is a serene side to this village trampled by 100,000
visitors a day in summer. Out of season the St-Tropez of
mesmerising quaint beauty and ‘sardine scales glistening like
pearls on the cobblestones’ that charmed Guy de Maupassant
(1850–93) comes to life. Meander cobbled lanes in the old fishing
quarter of La Ponche,
sip pastis at a place des lices cafe, watch old men play
pétanque (a variant on the game of bowls) beneath plane
trees, or walk in solitary splendour from beach to beach along the
coastal path.
