Pramousquier and Le Rayol

Pramousquier and le Rayol are located at the very centre of the Maures Cornice. Though the Maures mountain range stretches up to Saint Raphaël, the cornice is limited to the most narrow coastline of the south, between le Lavandou and Cavalaire at the southern edge of the St Tropez peninsula.

Pramousquier is the smallest and maybe the most fancy hamlet of the township of le Lavandou, bordering the famous Cape Nègre where the richest of Europe built their summer residencies. It is right here we find the only summer village of Club Mediterranée on the Côte d'Azur, and the "Hameau (hamlet) de Pramousquier" of Pierre et Vacances where our apartments are located.

The official website of le Lavandou township says about the beach of Pramousquier :

"Pramousquier, the last beach in The Lavandou, set between two outcrops of rock, has a special, intangible quality. Is it the blue-green reflections on the sand or the way the sea turns turquoise here ? This beach has a strange kind of alchemy that captures your gaze and makes your pulse quicken. It's as if there was a special nostalgia in the air, the kind you find in a place like this, on the edge of two worlds" (http://www.lelavandou.com/ukplages/plage12.htm).

It is true that the turquoise colour of the sea here is quite amazing, especially when observed from underwater, it reminds the Caribean or the Marquises to any visitor who has travelled a bit around the world. But in our view when talking about "the edge of two worlds", the civil servants of le Lavandou website rather think at Rayol-Canadel, the next township on the cornice and the road to St Tropez... Taking a closer look at the map of our beach, we see that in fact each township administrates half of the beach!

This means that each township considers that it is the other one who should be in charge of "cleaning" the beach during springtime from the seaweed of the winter season. So this work is usually done rather late, in May. In fact, for natural beaches as ours, from an ecological point of view it is a lot better to do this job as late as possible as the seaweed fixes the sand, and we would even prefer it not being done at all, herewith keeping the wild natural aspect of the beach. Unfortunately, many think differently, and the beach is indeed "cleaned" from seaweed every spring. This also explains the exceptional private state of this beach - it means less cost for the townships, as it is a private company paid by the owners who is in charge of cleaning the beach every morning in the summer season.

The frontier between the 2 townships of le Lavandou and le Rayol-Canadel follows the Rau creek, which is dry most of the time. The Rau creek boarding the lower part of our property not only separates these two townships, it is also the frontier between Hyères County and Saint Tropez County, now named in a more fancy manner "Provence d'Azur" (Hyères County - light blue in the Var map below) and "Golfe de St Tropez - Pays des Maures" (St Tropez Gulf County - red in the Var map taken from the Var Government documentation - see below). So our unique beach is both the last beach in Provence and the first beach in St Tropez County when heading from Hyères-les-Palmiers to St Tropez.

Regarding the 12 beaches of the Maures Cornice, 8 are rather small and difficult to reach from the cornice. Included in those are 2 hidden ones (not visible from the road) where "amateurs of integral tanning" go, like Le Layet close to Cavalière, a public but hidden beach where nudism is tolerated though not mandatory... The two large roadside beaches St. Clair and Cavalière are rather crowded. This leaves for us residents 2 beaches, the most beautiful ones, where parking remains difficult and where the crowd therefore does not show up : Aiguebelle and Pramousquier. These are the places where Jean Cocteau, Winston Churchill or Humphrey Bogart spent their holidays long before us. 

Going further east, the beaches of Canadel and le Rayol (not shown the map above) are tiny ones. So on this part of the coast, the only comfortable beaches after Pramousquier and before the famous Tahiti and Pampelone beaches of St Tropez are those of Cavalaire (crowded) and Gigaro (a nice one).

When staying in Pramousquier, we would suggest that if there were only one place to visit during your stay, it should be the one right next-door in Rayol-Canadel, the wonderful 220 acres seafront Jardin Mediterranean du Domaine du Rayol (Rayol Gardens) you can reach by a 45 min. walk (on a former coastal rail track transformed into a walking path). This is not because Jacques Chirac has spent his summer holidays there during his younger years, but because this is definitely the most beautiful garden in the best climate of the Côte d'Azur (quite nicer than the Parc Floral Phenix in Nice). The website of the Domaine is informative and available in English. The latest frost here goes back to 1985 and it was not an important one. So vegetation is splendid, especially in the South-African, the Asian and the Australian sections, and naturally also the cool and shady bamboo forest. If you wish to register for the underwater visit (equipment provided by the garden managers), you must do so several days in advance as this visit is a much demanded one. The Conservatoire du Littoral, a very rich public organisation which buys every piece of land for sale on the seashore, is also about to get hold of the Domaine du Dattier, the only other big property between Pramousquier and Cavalaire, just next to the Domaine du Rayol they already own. So, as the notary from Le Lavandou says, there will be no more construction on the seafront land between Le Lavandou and St. Tropez.