Seventeen kilometres east of Hyères, BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS, like all good Provençal villages, is indisputably medieval in flavour, with a ruined but restored castle at the summit of its hill, protected by spiralling lines of pantiled houses backing onto short-cut flights of steps. The mimosas here, and all along the Côte d'Azur, are no more indigenous than the people passing in their Porsches: the tree was introduced from Mexico in the 1860s, but the town still has some of the most luscious climbing flowers of any Côte town.To the southwest of Bormes is one of those rare unbuilt-up stretches of coast around BREGANÇON and CABASSON, good wine-growing terrain, harbouring a presidential residence in the castle at Cap de Bregançon. Unfortunately, access to the sea is heavily controlled, with three beaches charging hefty parking fees (and a small charge for pedestrians and cyclists). The beach by the castle past Cabasson is the best.
Pages in section ‘Bormes-les-Mimosas’: Practicalities.
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