10 May 1, 2022The Sunday Times
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Pauloo, who adds that UK buyers here
are few. “It’s old-school and traditional
and anchored by a lovely little harbour.
It’s not really touristy. It’s a slower pace
of life, playing pétanque under the
trees, having a glass of pastis. I’m sure
one of the reasons they filmed there is
it hasn’t been built up. It doesn’t have
that modern look you’d find in Nice. It
really feels like you could be walking
down the street in 1910.”
Between Hyères and Le Pradet is
Carqueiranne, a fishing village beloved
of retirees, where a waterfront
promenade is shaded by parasol pines.
Le Lavandou, a resort 17 miles to the
east, is closer to St Tropez. “People say
Le Lavandou is a bit like St Tropez was
in the 1960s,” Swannie says. “It’s not
overcrowded. It started as a fishing
village and is charming. It has great
restaurants, cafés and bars, and two or
three beaches. There are quite a few
artists there. In Le Lavandou a four-
bedroom villa with a pool and sea view
would cost you €1.5 million to
€2.5 million. In Nice you’d be looking
at €2.5 million to €3.2 million for
something similar.”
A ferry from Le Lavandou
takes you to Île du Levant, a
naturist island where
nudity is mandatory on
the beach and coastal
paths. In the hills
above Le Lavandou is
the medieval village
of Bormes les
Mimosas, where
Joanna McIntyre
inherited Mounto
Davalo, an ancient
stone house, from her
mother in 2013. “We
love it here; it gets
under your skin,” says
McIntyre, a fiftysomething
estate agent from Suffolk, who
rents out the five-bedroom house
with Sawday’s from £1,000 per week
when she and her husband, Simon,
are not using it. “You open the doors
to the garden and have a view of the
valley out to the sea. The garden is full
of oranges and lemons. You sit there
and hear church bells. Bormes les
Mimosas has cobbled streets, markets,
art galleries, restaurants and cafés.
And we’re 10 to 15 minutes to gorgeous
sandy beaches and vineyards.”
So why is this coastal paradise a
bargain compared to Nice? It’s less
accessible. Le Lavandou is 90 minutes
from airports in Nice and Marseille. Le
Pradet is two hours from Nice and 75
minutes from Marseille. Toulon is the
closest airport to the secret Côte d’Azur
— easyJet flies there from London in
the summer but not in the winter.
Brits are gradually discovering the
Var coast, where prices are rising
about 2 per cent a year. After Downton
Abbey the secret Côte d’Azur may no
longer be a secret.The period drama’s second film is set in
a French paradise that will charm the
dourest of dowagers, says Hugh Graham
SECRET C
20 milesMediterranean SeaNiceS t Trop ezFRANCEHyèresCarqueiranneLe PradetToulonLe LavandouBormes les MimosasMarseille€5.8M
LE LAVANDOU
Five minutes from Saint Clair beach, this five-bedroom
home has sea views and more than three acres of grounds,
with room to build another villa. +33 (0)970 44 66 43,
home-hunts.com€525,000
LA MÔLE
High above the village of La Môle, this 56 sq m,
two-bedroom house has a covered terrace, views of
wooded hills and is 10km from the beaches of St Tropez.
knightfrank.comY
ou know it has been a
rough winter when even
the Downton Abbey family
feels the need to relocate
to the south of France. In
Downton Abbey: A New Era, which
opened in cinemas on Friday, the
Crawley clan swap Highclere Castle for
a villa on the Mediterranean. But the
filming location is not one of the usual
Riviera honeypots: the Villa Rocabella
is in the town of Le Pradet, on the
coast of Var, far from the madding
crowds of Nice and Cannes.
“The Riviera is famous, but this area
is a lot less known,” says Tim Swannie,
director of Home Hunts, a search
agent. “It is a more wild and less built-
up than the Riviera; it’s very charming.
It’s not too bling; it’s laid-back. You
drive along the coast road and see lots
of little creeks, and stop and discover
hidden beaches and walks along the
rocky coastline. It’s a lot more green.”
Indeed, the area east of Toulon to
just before St Tropez is like a secret,
according to Ilia Pauloo, an estate
agent for Leggett Immobilier, who
returned during the pandemic after 38
years in Texas. “It’s about a 40-mile
stretch of coast. It’s got everything you
could hope for on the Mediterranean
and it’s cheaper than anywhere else
on the Côte d’Azur. The minute you
get to St Tropez you’re in crazy town.
You can’t get on the beach for a
reasonable amount of money. Instead
you could come west to Le Pradet,
Carqueiranne, Hyères or Le Lavandou
and buy a villa for 20 per cent less.”
Pauloo says you could buy a three to
four-bedroom villa with a pool in Le
Pradet, within walking distance of the
beach, for €600,000; in Nice the same
would start at €800,000. In Le Pradet
one-bedroom flats near the beach cost
as little as €150,000.
The beaches on this stretch of coast
are “some of the most beautiful in the
world”, according to Pauloo. Near Fort
de Brégançon (the French presidential
summer retreat), Plage de Brégançon,
Plage de Cabasson and Plage du Grand
Jardin are “white sand. It’s one of the
most magnificent places on Earth.”
More beach fantasies are found 13
miles west at Hyères, a medieval town
near the Giens peninsula where Queen
Victoria once stayed. “Hyères is one
of the best places for kitesurfing in
the world,” Pauloo says. “Plage
l’Almanarre is famous for windsports.
Plage de la Capte has long white sand
beaches that are insulated from the
wind. The Giens peninsula itself is a
little natural oasis. It has a lot of old
villas — the British were summering
there in the 1800s. The old salt flats
are now a bird sanctuary; there are
flamingos everywhere.”
The towns are as alluring as the
beaches. Le Pradet, where Downton
was filmed, is vintage Côte d’Azur. “It’s
more authentically French,” saysSTUDIO COURMONT/WWW.ROCABELLA.FR; BEN BLACKALL/FOCUS FEATURES/SPLASH NEWS; HEMIS/ALAMYDOWNTON’SYou could buy a three to
four-bedroom villa with
a pool in Le Pradet,
within walking distance
of the beach, for
€600,000