Saint-Tropez

Before the legend, there was a fishing village — and the village is still there, underneath. Saint-Tropez keeps its ochre quay, its tangle of lanes in La Ponche, its citadel watching over rooftops that Signac and Colette knew before the world arrived. Summer brings its theatre, of course; but come early in the morning, when the fishermen still land their catch and the light lies flat across the gulf, and the place reveals an older charm. The plane trees of the Place des Lices, the pétanque players, the chapel bell — none of it has surrendered. Saint-Tropez's secret is that it never quite believed its own myth. That disbelief is its salvation.

The peninsula guards itself with distance, which is precisely the point. From Le Bourget, a private jet reaches La Môle – Saint-Tropez airport in about an hour and a half, descending between the Maures hills onto one of Europe's most discreet runways, fifteen minutes from the village. By road, the A6 and A7 lead south to the A8, leaving the motorway at Le Muy for the winding descent through the Massif des Maures toward Sainte-Maxime. Here the Rolls-Royce Cullinan earns its place — unhurried on the coast road, imperturbable in summer traffic; for families, the Mercedes V-Class VIP follows with luggage and staff. Your chauffeur times every arrival to the quay's quieter hours.

Cheval Blanc St-Tropez sits directly on the water, and dinner at La Vague d'Or — Arnaud Donckele's three-star meditation on Provence — remains among the great tables of the Mediterranean. The Byblos, a village within the village, holds the other pole of Tropezian life. Days find their rhythm easily: the market on the Place des Lices on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, a long barefoot lunch at Club 55 on Pampelonne, the climb to the Citadelle at the hour the gulf turns gold. Some guests continue over the hill to La Réserve Ramatuelle for a day of silence above the vines. The season will swirl around you. It need never touch you.