Franska rivieran - vid Sainte Maxime i Frankrike

We are now on the French Riviera. The stretch of coastline known as the French Riviera, or Côte d'Azur, starts at the border with Italy in the east and ends at Toulon in the west. We are just outside Sainte Maxime, which is just north-east of Saint Tropez.

Table of contents

Camping Cigalons

Here at Camping Cigalons some 30 motorhomes are accommodated among some bungalows in a small hilly area. The owner hangs out in the small bar/restaurant/boule court and is both friendly and extremely uninterested in details such as passports/camping cards/registration. The price per day is 16 euros with ACSI discount.

Krabba — Luxury lunch at the campsite with crab and "sauce for fish" that we found in Spain.

Lovely beach

Not far from the campsite is the beach, where of course we went for a swim! It is 26 degrees in the air and the sun is shining, so perfect beach weather.

Luxury villas and cars

What about the rest of the French Riviera? Our experience is limited so far, but we have taken a walk along the beach and can note that there are plenty of large luxury villas with high walls, a lot of cars with brands such as Ferrari or Porche and many restaurants with significantly higher prices than we are used to. However, there will be no need for us! We have stocked up on food at Lidl and Carrefour today and have enough food for 14 days in the car ...

Photo evidence that we were not alone on the beach today...

READ MORE: The Giens Peninsula in France - outside Hyeres
READ MORE: St Tropez in France - the city of luxury and glamour?

French people sunbathe topless on the French Riviera

Not all women sunbathe topless, but certainly one in three. Sunbathing topless seems to be something for everyone: younger, older (well, up to 55 maybe), mums, everybody... Not only do they sunbathe topless, but they swim, walk along the beach and play with their children topless. It seems to be very natural here.

There are jellyfish in the crystal clear water.

You can see the bottom clearly through the shimmering green water. We haven't seen any jellyfish ourselves, but today we saw people pointing excitedly and poking a "thing" with a stick, and then others screaming or waving hysterically. Afterwards our German caravan neighbour told us it was about jellyfish. I didn't understand the German name, but apparently they can have different colours and burn, but are not really dangerous.

En av de första sakerna vi såg på stranden - en svensk flagga! — One of the first things we saw on the beach - a Swedish flag!

People fishing on the beach

In the midst of all the sunbathing and swimming couples and families, they throw up their tall fishing rods and cast their long fishing lines. More than one group was fishing today and we almost thought a small rubber boat would get tangled in the line ...

Ferrari owners can also be campers

At our campsite, a shiny red Ferrari sits outside one of the cabins. If you can afford a brand new Ferrari, shouldn't you be able to afford a fancy hotel room? Maybe the owner had to cut corners after buying the Ferrari, or maybe camping is a bit trendy...?

Överallt påminnelser om att man inte får parkera sin husbil längs kuststräckan... — Reminders everywhere that you can't park your campervan along the coastline ...

16 Comments

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Anders and Birgitta says:

The new look of the blog looks great. Have you seen the King's villa in Sainte Maxime? Here you can see what it looks like if you haven't seen it already.... http://husbilsliv.blogspot.se/2010/05/kungens-villa-i-sainte-maxime.html

14 May 2015 - 18:24

Sandora says:

Wouldn't say no to going there! 😀

14 May 2015 - 18:28

Åsa says:

Oh la la! Greetings from the Portuguese Riviera! 😉

14 May 2015 - 18:59

Mr Steve says:

A few metres from the beach on the French Riviera. Yes, thank you.
Tasty meals!

14 May 2015 - 19:12

anita says:

Now when I see the "new blog", I see that it is better and "bigger" for those of us with poorer vision... Nothing I reacted to before but now that it is better... Nice!
Have a great time among all the Ferraris!

14 May 2015 - 19:40

BP says:

Good that Anders and Birgitta have already added a link to the King's villa. Was going to do exactly the same thing.
Oh wait until you get to St Tropez and Antibes - where the luxury villas/houses are replaced by luxury boats of a size you've probably never seen before. Look but don't touch - sort of.

14 May 2015 - 20:50

Comment by post author

admin says:

Anders and Birgitta, how interesting! But it still looked relatively ordinary? How do you actually find it?

Sandora, it's nice here, and we will soon try to look around a bit more too!

Åsa, hehe, I am sure you are having a great time on the Portuguese Riviera! 🙂

Steve, we are doing well! Eating will probably be in the car... but we have bought some fresh tasty fish and also crab claws! 🙂

Anita, I'm glad you think you can see better now! I didn't realise that the pictures were small, but after others pointed it out, I...

BP, oh several who know the king's villa! And yes, I almost suspected that we would see some luxury boats here in the neighbourhood... 😉.

14 May 2015 - 21:54

Ditte says:

How nice! The French Riviera has been a favourite with me since my teenage years when I was on several language trips here along the coast and returned as an adult to the areas around Antibes, Cannes, Nice, St. Tropez for several years. Nice that you found a nice campsite in St Maxime at a good price, maybe the price is ok. because it is low season now. St Maxime is nice, but expensive like many resorts along the Riviera. But nice with Carre and Lidl so you could stock up.
-The restaurants used to have a menu at reasonable prices, but maybe that was then. Wishing you nice days in St Maxime.

14 May 2015 - 23:26

Comment by post author

admin says:

Ditte, glad you've been around so much! Yes, the price is ok because it is low season (all ACSI affiliated campsites cost between 12 and 18 euros in low season). There are menus in the restaurants which are ok, but more expensive than elsewhere in France. We saw 2-course menus for 20 euros.

15 May 2015 - 7:06

Anders and Birgitta says:

This is what street life looks like outside the King's villa, https://www.google.com/maps/@43.305201,6.630365,3a,75y,170.02h,94.45t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sEUZEjvU6xZzatXha3_eoFQ!2e0

15 May 2015 - 7:42

solan says:

Nice with good typography but a bit of a mess where to write a comment...

15 May 2015 - 8:30

Ama de casa says:

The Riviera is not completely wrong, but personally I like the mountain areas above better. A bit too luxurious and expensive down on the coast (sour said the fox 😉 ).

15 May 2015 - 10:03

Comment by post author

admin says:

Anders and Birgitta, thank you! We will keep an eye out! 🙂

Solan, I can agree with the commenting thing... I've asked on the wordpress forums, but it's not easy to change. You have to change the code... I'll see how it goes!

Ama de casa, we can probably agree with that, but we live cheaply here at the campsite so we will at least take the opportunity to look around a bit! 🙂

15 May 2015 - 11:09

Snows says:

A beautiful stretch of coastline but oh so expensive! I remember this from our travels there...

15 May 2015 - 11:30

Matts Torebring says:

It sounds promising that it's so warm already. Our experience of the Riviera is that it can be quite cold this time of year, when the cold sea winds blow in. Enjoy yourselves

15 May 2015 - 16:23

Ulla widing says:

Hi, the new look turned out great.... You have much warmer than we do. We are north of Sthlm, and it is 8 gr and windy. I go on.... here the heat lingers....

Enjoy as much as you can!

15 May 2015 - 17:33

French Riviera - at Sainte Maxime in France

Camping Cigalons

Lovely beach

Luxury villas and cars

French people sunbathe topless on the French Riviera

There are jellyfish in the crystal clear water.

People fishing on the beach

Ferrari owners can also be campers

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16 Comments

Anders and Birgitta says:

Sandora says:

Åsa says:

Mr Steve says:

anita says:

BP says:

admin says:

Ditte says:

admin says:

Anders and Birgitta says:

solan says:

Ama de casa says:

admin says:

Snows says:

Matts Torebring says:

Ulla widing says:

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