St Tropez - La Bastide de St Tropez
Spring 2007
Frank's view 
This small 26 room luxury hotel is superbly positioned between the town centre and the beaches of Pampleone. Place Des Lices is a 15 minute walk and Pampleone a few minutes drive. More significantly both town and beach are accessible without encountering the horrific traffic which gridlocks the town during high season. The hotel runs a complimentary shuttle to town or the beach which is occasionally driven by the hotel manager. It gives him an opportunity to talk to the guests.
The hotel is like a mini version of the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, in layout, style and colour. The rooms and suites are positioned around the central swimming pool, with either a pool or garden view. The reality is that your garden view may well be a sunless, uninterrupted view of a hedge.
The rooms are small. Even suites are small. We stayed in a suite with a separate sitting area which was a conservatory type room, too small to swing the hotel cat. The bedrooms are tiny, as are the bathrooms. The wardrobe space is ridiculous. Our wardrobe had 6 hangers. Remember, this is St Tropez. That over-the-top glitzy dress capital of Europe. 6 hangers? That would barely handle one day’s wardrobe for the average female guest in this town. Otherwise, make sure you stay during peak season when you’ll only need 6 bikinis.
The desk in the “living room” is ideal for a laptop but there is no spare power point, so I have to crawl underneath to unplug a lamp. This particular suite (Turquoise) has an electric heater under the desk. This is March, it is chilly and the heater is on. Unfortunately the heat is rising through the desk and not into the room. My laptop is almost on fire and the papers on the desk are close to spontaneous combustion.
On the subject of laptops, the hotel offers a wireless network operated by Meteor. Access is via a pre paid card costing between 5 Euros for 2 hours to 45 Euros for 3 days.
The biggest issue with La Bastide de St Tropez is privacy. We have stayed in 3 different junior suites here. Two had private patios, jaccuzi and the hedge view, with neighbours very obviously on either side. Turquoise has a lovely seating area with a view across town to the sea. However, the suite next door also has a patio, very close, too close.
The restaurant is small and very good. I doubt if many non-residents visit the restaurant but it is worth a try. Unsurprisingly it is expensive. The menu describes the dishes in extraordinary detail. Consider this:
“Filet de boeuf en morceau sur une brochette, de beau artichauts violets, trios grosses frites maison, emulsion de poivre et cacahuetes”
The detail was extraordinary, down to “Three large chips” ( French Fries to some of you).
It may come as a surprise, having read this review, that we are actually fond of this hotel. The staff are incredibly friendly and helpful and it has the feel of a small hotel. The manager is very hands on and always around the hotel for a chat.
Just make sure you book the largest room you can afford and pray for good weather!
La Bastide de St Tropez
Route Carlos
St Tropez
+33 4 94 55 82 55
Be Frank: agree or disagree? What do you think?
