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Saint Barthélemy

Posted by Mark Sullivan on December 22, 2024

Posted in: France, North America, Saint Barthélemy. 1 comment

Our stunning beach, Anse des Flamands

Our French Caribbean adventure continued in the neighboring island of Saint Barth. This whole trip was really planned around our desire to stay at a hotel here called Cheval Blanc. We’ve stayed at two Cheval Blanc hotels previously — in Paris and in Saint-Tropez — and they are extraordinary places.

Our resort was connected by boardwalks through jungle

We had one dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a dazzling jungle setting

The Cheval Blanc hotels are owned by the French luxury brand juggernaut, LVMH. This is a splurgy place on a gorgeous beach called Anse des Flamands. It is staffed by armies of young, beautiful people, almost exclusively from France.

Saint Barth is a stunningly beautiful island. It’s also known as a playground for very wealthy people, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side that means there are some really nice resorts — and an endless supply of high quality restaurants to choose from. We ate very well here, but we actually tire easily of overly “fancy” restaurants with crazy prices.

The rich party crowd apparently also likes restaurants and clubs with a lot of noise. A couple we met in Saint-Martin told us about a couple restaurants we needed to go to, which apparently turn into pounding music venues as the evening goes on. That sounds like hell to us, so we carefully tried to stick to calmer choices.

I was kind of fascinated, if somewhat repulsed, by the people-watching in a place like this. You see parents with such over-privileged children that it’s hard to imagine these kids not being really messed up. And then you have the guys with trophy wives that they’ll eventually get bored with. And people coming out of designer boutiques loaded up with bags of flashy clothes. It’s fun to watch for a few days. But it makes us feel very, well, normal?

We loved the gorgeous beach here. And watching the scene. And five days was just enough. And now it’s nice to return to New York, and leave this beautiful shallowness behind.

The weather is mostly perfect. But most days deliver a brief rainfall, followed by a gorgeous rainbow.

Lunch in the main town of Gustavia, overlooking a harbor full of yachts and mega-yachts

…and the moment when the weather suddenly turns bad for a few minutes!

Our hotel is owned by the French luxury giant LVMH. So they had an evening reception to promote one of their fashion brands, Bulgari. People were trying on necklaces covered in diamonds at god-only-knows what kind of cost (Hundreds of thousands? Millions?). It was fun to witness, but we did not buy anything.

We had to share the resort boardwalks with lots of turtles

Enjoying yet another meal that’s “fancier” than what we normally prefer

One day we went out of our way to find a more modest place for lunch. It was OK, but we actually kind of missed the glamor of our resort!

Stopping for a pre-dinner drink right on the harbor in Gustavia

Breakfast overlooking Anse des Flamands

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (and Monaco)

Posted by Mark Sullivan on September 2, 2024

Posted in: Europe, France, Monaco. Leave a Comment

We rarely have cocktails in France because nobody knows how to make them. Not so at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo.

From Cap Ferrat we took an easy bus ride to our 25th and final destination of our personal Tour de France. The 45-minute bus ride took us east, passing through Monaco just before reaching our destination. In fact our hotel in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin was so close to Monaco that we walked into that principality one evening for dinner. I can’t recall ever walking to another country for dinner before.

This was mostly a beach stop for us. We stayed at a pretty posh resort with gorgeous views across the bay toward Monaco. That’s a nice way to end this journey. The good news is that the French Riviera is just stunningly beautiful. The water is so blue and so warm and wonderful. It’s close to heaven — but with a downside.

The view to our beach and across the bay to overbuilt crazy Monaco

Relaxing at our beach resort in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

Like our last stop, things here are a little TOO upscale for our taste. There is no shortage of really fancy restaurants, but we have a much harder time finding our sweet spot — small bistros serving extraordinary food at reasonable prices. France has really spoiled us!

So one night we just embraced this gilded corner of the world and booked dinner at the very fancy restaurant at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, the upscale neighborhood of upscale Monaco. Our table was on a lovely terrace overlooking the Place du Casino and the famous Casino de Monte Carlo. The square was just packed with excited tourists, who seemed to just be taking in the scene of all the fancy people coming and going from this hotel and the casino.

But what really riled up the crowd was the roar of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis that would pull up. It seemed pretty silly to us to hear these cars go “VROOM VROOOOOM” as they moved at snail pace through the choked traffic. But that’s Monaco for you — 38,000 people with crazy hordes of money packed into a country of less than 1 square mile. As a result the place is so overbuilt it’s actually just kind of ugly.

Fancy dining in front of the Casino de Monte Carlo

…and the Place du Casino

So now we say goodbye to the Mediterranean and to an incredible summer journey that touched so many corners of this amazing country (France that is, not Monaco!) I feel a tinge of sadness as it comes to a close, but of course home is always nice, too.

Lunch at a well researched, lovely restaurant on the other side of Roquebrune

That little restaurant featured a bathroom with crazy animal art — and recorded animal noises!

From Roquebrune, looking east to Menton, the last city in France before the Italian border

St-Paul de Vence

Posted by Mark Sullivan on August 27, 2024

Posted in: Europe, France. 1 comment

St-Paul de Vence, clustered tightly on its hilltop

The elegant, narrow streets of the town

Me in those streets

From Moustiers we drove a couple very stressful hours southward — almost to the Mediterranean — to reach the postcard-perfect hilltop town of St-Paul de Vence. This was once a normal medieval village perched on a hill with beautiful views to the sea. But then it was discovered by Pablo Picasso, and endless streams of artists and celebrities have passed through since.

About that drive: For the first half or so we were on mountain roads so ridiculously narrow that it seemed two cars could not possibly get past each other. Yet cars kept coming from the other direction, instilling dread as we would slow down to try to squeeze past them without scraping the car on our left or slipping off the shoulder-less cliff on our right.

But once we got out of the mountains we started to sense the magic of the Mediterranean below. We connected onto the highway that runs along the Côte d’Azur, watching the iconic place names go by: St. Tropez, Grasse, Nice, Cannes. But before settling on the coast itself we turned inland from Nice a few miles for this stop at St-Paul de Vence.

Here we spent three wonderful nights at Toile Blanche, a beautiful boutique hotel just outside town. This place got everything right — amazing contemporary design, beautiful gardens, good food, wonderful service. This was a close to perfect stop.

I was concerned beforehand that the place was a bit removed from town — nearly a half-hour walk. And I knew we would never want to use the car once we were settled in. And yet my concerns failed to account for the fact that the walk into town was also a seriously steep uphill climb. So after two journeys into town and back we found ourselves pretty content to just stay in the beautiful hotel. In fact, I was genuinely sad to leave this little slice of heaven.