It’s January 13, the festivities have long been binned, the sky is at head
level and I, like you, am just emerging from assault by vomiting bug. So I’m
dreaming.
I’m dreaming of white-sand beaches fringed with pines, of huge skies, cliffs,
creeks and sea, at once limpid and brochure-blue. I’m dreaming of forests
full of eucalyptus and other Mediterranean items smokily scenting the warm
air.
My mind’s eye also takes in a grilled john dory and a bottle of rosé on an
outdoor terrace, as well as a certain sense of style to which I have
resolved to aspire in 2008 (once the vomiting stops).
I am dreaming, in short, of the island of Porquerolles, off the French coast
near Hyères.
And then, by a process unexplained by physics, I’m there. It is July, and I am
hopping off the ferry into the port village. I’ve arrived not as a
day-tripper, but as one of the select few who are staying over because we
know that here, more than anywhere else, the Riviera is in pristine form. It
is exceptional. We will need time.
The village – population 350, the island’s only settlement – looks like a
colonial outpost in North Africa. No wonder: it was built for convalescing
troops in the mid-19th century. The square was unmistakably once a parade
ground. Now, though, it has softened into Provençal shape, with abundant
oleander and bougainvillea, jolly fruit stalls and bars.
I don’t linger. Happy visitors off the ferries are rather crowding the place.
Instead, I hire a bike. It’s the best way of tackling the car-free island.
Within moments, I’ve left people and tarmac behind, to cruise past vineyards
and fruit groves. A few moments more and I have some essentially
perpendicular forest tracks to myself – well, me and a trillion cicadas
clicking frantically in sexual frenzy.
The south of the island rises wild and ragged. I burst out onto the cliffs
above the Calanque de l’Indienne, and the breath I’ve just regained after
the cycle up disappears again. This is a distillation of the best
Mediterranean land- and seascapes: rocks, grey-green vegetation, sea, sky
and far horizon, where the two blues meet, but don’t mingle. It’s the sort
of view that makes being on earth seem suddenly worthwhile.
And it’s almost all mine – as is this entire stretch of coast. In a
high-summer hour of darting between forest, maquis and promontories, and
just failing to hurtle 300ft down to the briny, I meet perhaps four people.
Porquerolles has been fashioned by man since the Etruscans, but, beyond
limited areas around the village, postwar development has been kept out. The
French authorities these days intrude only to stop intrusion and protect the
fragile wilderness. You get to the slightly more distant zones by foot, bike
or, mainly, not at all.
Some time later, I’m on the island’s softer northern edge, before my favourite
beach in France. Plage Notre Dame is the one I was dreaming about at the
beginning. Though its curve seems endless, it’s a secret I share with
relatively few others, for it’s a 50-minute walk or 20-minute cycle from the
port. I swim, ponder the vastness of things, then stand in the water and
watch my toes twiddling for rather longer than I would usually deem
necessary.
Finally, I take another track out west. After some rocky ups and downs, and a
few more beaches, I arrive right at the end. Perched between forest, rocks
and blue, blue bay is Le Mas du Langoustier, the most isolated and sublimely
sited luxury hotel in the French south. This is where smart folk go when
they’ve tasted the glitz of Cannes, Antibes and St Tropez, and want to get
back to Riviera basics – always assuming those basics include four-star
service and Michelin-rated cooking.
After the terrace dinner of john dory (in ginger and coriander butter) and
rosé, and with the last ferryload of day-trippers long gone, I stand silent
under the stars on the headland overlooking the beach. This, I think, is the
real enchantment of the Riviera. Then I return to the hotel for a cognac.
The strategy: staying on Porquerolles comes neither cheap nor easy. For
obvious reasons, accommodation is limited. You’ll need to dig deep, and book
early – especially for high season. There’s a range of apartments and villas
to rent, mainly in or around the village. Porquerolles Vacances has a decent
selection (00 33 4 94 14 00 05 winter, 00 33 4 94 58 31 36 summer; www.porquerolles-vacances.com).
But the real Riviera island experience requires backup pampering from a
hotel. If you cannot stretch to the Mas du Langoustier, there’s a handful of
more rustic spots in the village.
Then, as long as you have brought your swimwear, all you need is a hired bike,
and that’s the holiday sorted. In the unlikely event that you seek more
activity, Porquerolles Plongée (04 98 04 62 22, www.porquerolles-plongee.
com) will take you diving, while L’Indien (04 94 58 30 39, www.lindien.fr)
hires wetbikes. Noisy blighters. I’d leave them alone. The best hotels: for
the swish of Riviera style, it has to be Le Mas du Langoustier (04 94 58 30
09, www.langoustier.com; half-board
from £128pp April/May, £142 June/September, £151 July/August). From the
ferry, a shuttle trundles up the track to the remote western seaboard,
swinging you into surroundings – forest, garden, pool, tennis courts, beach
– that you undoubtedly deserve. The Atmosphere is Provençal country house.
Pick of the rest in the village are the Villa SainteAnne (04 98 04 63 00, www.sainteanne.com;
half-board from £52pp low season, £60 mid, £70 high) and Les Mèdes (04 94 12
41 24, www.hotel-les-medes.fr;
doubles from £81/£105/£138, B&B).
Getting there: Ryanair (0871 246 0000, www.ryanair.com)
flies from Stansted to Hyères – which the airline, with its celebrated
geographical vagueness, calls “Toulon St Tropez”. Take a 10-minute taxi
drive down the Giens peninsula to La Tour Fondue, then a ferry for the
20-minute crossing. It costs £12pp return and runs at least hourly in
summer. Check the timetable at www.tlv-tvm.com.
Getting around: no cars on the island but, at roughly five miles by
two, it is eminently walkable. Alternatively, the village is full of
bike-hire shops. Try L’Indien (see above) or Le Cycle Porquerollais (04 94
58 30 32, www.cycle-porquerollais.com).
Rates for a mountain bike are about £8.50 per day.
Be warned: the island’s southern hills, though not terribly high, are
steep, and taxing for the unfit. On a summer visit, I was behind a fat chap
who pedalled to what looked like cardiac arrest. I’d hate to see you go the
same way.
Best beaches: Notre Dame, obviously, but they are all lovely. Nearer
the village, La Courtade is a little more crowded and La Plage d’Argent
quite a lot more, not least because it is the only one with a beach bar/
restaurant. Humanity thins out again on the creekier beaches towards Le
Langoustier.
Après-beach: wild nightlife is exactly not the point of
Porquerolles, though evenings can be agreeably warm in the village. I’d
start with some fish, conceivably sea bass, under the awning at L’Arche de
Noé (Place d’Armes; 04 94 58 33 71, www.arche-de-noe.com;
menus from £23). Drink a white or a rosé from Domaine de la Courtade, the
island’s finest vineyard. Continue to Le Pub, on Rue de la Douane, or the
hipper Le Fly Deck lounge bar, on the same street. Then go for a stroll on
the beach. You have the island – and so the whole world – entirely to
yourselves. Smart thinking: outside the village, don’t smoke. This is smart
thinking anywhere (as people keep telling me), but a hundredfold more so on
Porquerolles, so tinder-dry in summer that a dropped fag end could set the
island ablaze. Think how silly you would feel then.
Recommended B&B,s in the area other than those in the article because one has not responded and the second is replying in french
john king, Clonlara, Co.Clare. Ireland