La Bastide de Saint Tropez****, Var, France.

A quiet, lovely small delux hotel, filled with charm, great cuisine
and walking distance from the center of St. Tropez.

This lovely delux hotel is for those who love a peaceful, discrete, and tranquil environment, removed from the glitter of St. Tropez (but within walking distance of the center) that has excellent accommodations, marvelous food and a very warm reception both human and ambience. A place to escape the outside world but never without contact with it if you choose. The four main buildings surround a big pool with a water fall. The result is a palm tree oasis that delights the eye and the senses.

Since our first coverage in 1999, La Bastide de St. Tropez has undergone changes. We are delighted to say that today, the hotel is the same lovely, peaceful paradise it has always been, but the restaurant "L'Oliver", has been restored to its former glory under a marvelous new chef, Chef Broc, and is better than ever with a very clean cuisine that celebrates the tastes of the sea and the land in an understated stye of sophistication that focuses on taste as well as presentation, allowing the special flavors of the best of ingredients to shine through.

The rooms and suites are light and fresh yet are rendolent of Provence, filled with charm and character and, above all, comfort. We enjoyed our mini suite with its own private garden and jacuzzi. French pastoral prints covered the bed and cushions, the white walls adorned with colorful paintings.

Central Pool around which are clustered the villas housing the rooms.		The attractive lounge with balustrade staircase leading to the upper rooms. Click photo below to see larger version. Indoor/Outdoor dining. The Victorian style "green house" dining room opens out to the shaded terrace (see left top).
Click photo below to see larger version. Just one of the individually designed bedrooms.
Click photos where the mouse turns to a hand to see larger version. Peter D'Aprix © 1999-2001-08

The focus here is on quiet, personal intimacy. Your privacy is protected. The calm is restorative and yet you are only a few minutes from the center of St. Tropez. While they have a shuttle, you can walk easily to town.

For a few years, the restaurant had lost its way, but today, it is center stage and worth while in itself for a visit. With internet access (WiFi) and all the modern connection necessities, La Bastide will allow guests who cannot take much time away from work to combine work and holiday together. The telephone system has been changed to allow each room to have its own number and line, be equipped with fax machine and connect directly to the internet.

While the name (La Bastide) suggests an ancient stone stronghold, it is in fact a collection of relatively new buildings that you could swear have been around for centuries. Built in the Provençal style with cut stone floors, warm colored stucco exterior walls partially covered with bougainvillea, exposed beams and rooms each an individual, it is designed to be exactly what you may have dreamed a Provençal country house should be. The brain child of owners Jeannine and Boris-Serge Sidoroff, it was built within the last couple of decades on the site of a vineyard. There are still vineyards just down the lane.

And if you feel like a cruise, the hotel has a high speed motor yacht at your disposal for special cruises from a Champagne evening in the bay or an extended cruise to Corsica, Italy or a destination of your choice.

Breakfast either in the dining room, out under the olive trees, by the pool or in the privacy of your own lodgings.		A traditional charm. The entrance to the hotel. For an evening off the coast or a more extended cruise, you can commission the naval department of the hotel.
Lounge by the pool.
Peter D'Aprix © 1999-2001-08

La Bastide de Saint Tropez is open all year long and so is it’s restaurant "L’Olivier". With its world wide reputation, Saint Tropez continues to draw visitors to its narrow streets where chichi antique shops and fashionable clothing boutiques share space with the narrow houses of fishing families who happily hang the family washing on lines across to the building opposite without so much as a blush for some of the articles of apparel thus displayed. Back at the hotel, the main building houses a few rooms, the two story voluminous lounge, reception and the restaurant. The rest of the rooms and suites are contained in four structures of varying sizes which are loosely grouped around the large heated pool fed by a waterfall. The gardens are lush with plantings, palm, olive, orange, umbrella pine and many other varieties of trees, bushes, plants and flowers. Many of the suites have their own Jacuzzis and private gardens.

On all but rainy days, you can eat outside under the olive trees. If the sun is too strong, market umbrellas appear. One whole wall of the dining room consists of glass doors while one end of the dining room is a solarium protected on hot, sunny days for overheating with pleated white canvas ceiling shades. The walls are a pale rag washed yellow. In winter even on dull, gray days, the combination of soft light and yellow walls emit a warm feeling evoking ghosts of summer; a feeling conducive to culinary contemplation.

Rooms and Suites
Old world charm with new world comforts.		One of the several apartments Open plan ceilings add a country ambience of many of the rooms.
Bedroom of suite filled with warm provencal colors and loads of space.