St Tropez, Without the Season
The most photographed village on the Riviera is a different place in May, and a better one. The definitive guide to arriving before everyone else.
St Tropez in August is a pageant. It is a wonderful pageant, and it is exhausting, and the people who love it most are the ones who leave before the month is out. The village the rest of the year belongs to a different Riviera entirely, and it is the one worth arranging a trip around.
Arrive in the second week of May. The light is already the light of summer, the water has turned, and the terraces have reopened without the crowds that will fill them within six weeks. You can walk the port at nine in the evening and hear the rigging.
The three mornings to plan
Start with the market on Place des Lices, which runs Tuesday and Saturday and is at its best before half past eight. Buy the strawberries, the tapenade, the bread that is still warm, and eat standing up like everyone else who lives here.
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