Var from the madding crowds

Var is best known for its Côte d'Azur resort of Saint-Tropez and the great naval port of Toulon, but it's an essentially rural department, a place of little villages, small food producers and world-class wineries, writes GAVIN CORBETT

I’M WOKEN by a whisper, and then a shout. A mistral is hissing through the pines outside my cabin, carrying on it the voices of soldiers from a nearby army base, who are singing (if that’s the right word) the praises of Mother France in a cappella unison.

It’s going to be a fine day: they say in these parts that the mistral – the characteristic wind of Mediterranean France – clears the air, sweeping away the clouds. It also promises to keep things pleasantly cool for my next few hours’ exploration of the Var department of Provence.

I set out from Holiday Green, one of a number of excellently appointed campsites in this region. This one is vast, spread over 15 undulating, forested acres just outside the town of Fréjus. It’s a top-class facility, with everything the camper could need. I haven’t had to drag a caravan behind me to secure a berth here either – most of the site is given over to permanent and very comfortable cabins.

The Var is best known for its Côte d’Azur resort of Saint-Tropez and the great naval port of Toulon, but it’s an essentially rural department, a place of little villages and small food producers and world-class wineries, and it’s inland and upland where I head on this trip.

The Musée des Artes et Traditions Populaires (dracenie.com) in Draguignan puts me in the picture: exhibits on shepherding, beekeeping and cork-making depict a timeless way of life, but you only have to walk the town’s streets to see how cherished and unchanged traditions are here.

It’s as if life itself has its own protective appellation d’origine contrôllée stamp: the boulangerie is the first port of call on any day, the busy market sells terroir produce as it has done twice-weekly for decades, and pampered poodles are scooped up into Citroen 2CVs by elegant old ladies on the way back from salons de thé.

The road north of Draguignan climbs higher until you reach Châteaudouble, perched dramatically on a tumble of terraces and commanding an eagle’s nest view of the mouth of the Nartuby gorge.

A refreshing pastis by the boules pitch sets me up for the short journey to Bargemon, a favourite with international artists, whose presence gives the village a delightfully dotty character.

The contemporary art gallery is owned by English couple Guy and Michèle Beddington. Their home just outside town (beddington fineart.com) is open to the public and worth a visit for its sculpture garden, with pieces from more than 70 artists spread among the bushes like an avant-garde division of Xian’s terracotta army.

To the south of Draguignan is the largely 16th-century village of Roquebrune, which sits across the Argens plain from a huge, Martian-like plinth of red rock. The village is very pretty – full of narrow lanes, footpaths shaded under arcades and ochre-coloured houses with verdigris- and eggshell-painted shutters.

There are a couple of interesting museums here. The Maison du Patrimonie (roque brune.com) has a great collection of ex-voto folk paintings, while the Maison du Chocolat (paysmeresterel.com) houses an evocative assortment of advertising and packaging from all of Europe’s great chocolate makers, and is itself housed inside a 17th-century chapel where a large statue of JC himself looks down on the exhibits.

Another curious mix of the epicurean and the ecclesiastic is in evidence at the Château Sainte Roseline winery (sainte-roseline.com) near the village of Les Arcs. A tour of the estate’s vineyards and a dégustation in the cellar is, of course, recommended, but the real treasure here is the on-site chapel.

Its most spectacular feature is a Marc Chagall mural, Le Repas des Anges, completed in 1975. Though bracingly modern in style, it honours the 14th-century saint for whom the estate and chapel are named, and whose body lies on display nearby in a crystal casket. (Her disembodied eyes, ghoulishly vivid, stare out from a separate reliquary.)

These days poor Roseline is looking not so much beatific as a dark shade of beetroot, although her legend is so powerful that even the rival Château Font du Broc winery (chateau-fontdubroc.com), just down the road, has embraced her. That estate built a massive vaulted stone cellar in 1997 to serve not just as a wine store but as a venue for wedding receptions.

On the night before the first reception was set to be held, the cellar collapsed – if it had happened hours later, many people might have been killed. Praise was deemed due to Roseline, and a chapel was dedicated to her in thanks for her apparent act of divine intervention.

THE VAR IS packed with historic sites – Fréjus, in particular, is a bounty of Roman and medieval attractions – but a holiday here is less about following lines on a tourist map than the accretion of simple, sensual experiences.

One thing every visitor must do in these summer months is get out into the garrigue – the wild provencal meadowland – for a picnic. Joy it is to fill a basket with a bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé, a fresh baguette, a chunk of goat’s cheese, a can of olive oil and a fist full of feves (sweet beans in the pod) from a market stall, and negotiate your way over bone-dry twigs to a clearing among untamed and intensely scented lavender, rosemary and thyme. All the while keeping an eye out for charging packs of wild boar, of course.

Taking a picnic to the Estérel hills nature park (decouverte delesterel.com) just to the east of St Raphael, is strictly controlled, but it offers a sample of Provence in the raw. Entrance to the park is carefully monitored too, and just before nightfall rangers sweep its dauntingly large acreage as best they can for campers – it’s a sort of 24-hour lock-up garrigue, as it were.

There are hardly any roads here, and virtually no buildings. If some of the villages further inland give a flavour of provencal life before mobile phones and hypermarkets, the Estérel Massif feels like Provence before civilisation itself. From the park’s coastal track, Cannes shimmers in the distance, which only increases the sense of splendid isolation.

IT’S HARD NOT to submit to the lure of the jetset, if only for a couple of hours, though. You can take a trip on a catamaran from the pleasant resort of Saint-Raphael up and down the Riviera (amcazur.com).

I went as far as Cap Draumont, where the Estérel hills fall to the sea in sheer red cliffs, around the Ile d’Or, and back. I don’t think I’ve ever sunbathed in such decadent circumstances (at any moment I expected the bassline from Rio by Duran Duran to crash the peace) although the captain did rope me in to help hoist the sail.

Provence of the imagination is a land of two extremes. On the one hand there’s the glitz of Bardot and La Croisette; on the other, the pastoral idylls of Peter Mayle, Jean de Florette and Vincent van Gogh’s landscapes. Tourists too often beat the well-worn trails up the Riviera or west to Arles and Saint-Rémy without stopping in between.

Those places are full of excitement and charm, of course, but for anyone who loves France – who has ever gone into a daze at the first crackle of an Edith Piaf record, or walked into a l’Occitane shop and fallen immediately into a reverie – the Var offers something truly wonderful: the real Provence, if it exists at all, is to be found right here.

Var where to . . .

Stay

* Holiday Green, Rue des Combattants d’Afrique du Nord, 83600 Fréjus, 00-33-494-198830, holidaygreen.com. Four-star campsite with 680 pitches, including fully equipped and furnished cabins. Features a waterpark, shops and entertainment through the holiday season (April 1st to September 30th). Caravan/ large-tent pitch, €49 a day July/August; €34 low season. Two-person tent pitch, €39 a day July/August; €29 low season. Cabins at a variety of prices for weekend, week-long or longer stays. “Le Classic”, for example, rents from €350 a week.

* Le Logis du Guetteur, Place du Chateau, 83460 Les Arcs sur Argens, 00-33-494-995110, logisduguetteur.com. Three-star hotel in a castle atop a promontory in the beautiful village of Les Arcs. An excellent base for touring the vineyards of the area. The restaurant comes highly recommended. Doubles from €90, apartments from €170.

*La Villa Mauresque, 1792 Route de la Corniche Boulouris, 83700 Saint-Raphaël, 00-33-494-830242, villa-mauresque.com. Actually two luxury boutique hotels, sharing the same manicured lawn on the Riviera seafront. Skip the high-season road traffic by taking La Villa’s 30m yacht down the coast. The whole place is looking particularly swanky after a just-completed renovation. Doubles from €175 in low season, €275 in high.

Eat

* Restaurant La Tour, Place Beausoleil, 83300 Châteaudouble, 00-33-494-709308, latour-chateaudouble.eresto.net. Inside is cosy and vintage, but outside on the terrace, overlooking the Nartuby gorge, is where you want to be. “Wow” is the word. Does great things with in-season local produce.

* La Réserve, 98 Route Nationale, 83520 Roquebrune-sur-Argens, 00-33-494-963539, dgayrard@hotmail.com. On the edge of the sea, with big windows affording great views. The €31 set menu is terrific value. The oeuf meurette revisité – an egg poached in a wine and fish broth – is so good you’ll feel you’ve done something wrong.

* Hostellerie des Gorges de Pennafort, RD 25, 83830 Callas, 00-33-494-766651, hostellerie-pennafort.com. Parisian chef Philippe da Sylva has earned a Michelin star for his creations in this hotel restaurant deep in the Var countryside. The €49 daily market menu is amazing, but if you can afford it go for the €140 tasting menu and let Monsieur da Sylva go wild.

Shop spot

Maison du Terroir, 4 Place Alfred Perrin, 83520 Roquebrune-sur-Argens, 00-33-494-811447, terroir@roquebrunesurargens.fr. Describing itself as “a faithful defender of fine flavours”, this is your one-stop shop for local delicacies. Wine, jams, honeys and olive oils are all sourced from 40 producers within a few miles of the shop. It will also provide you with contact details for each producer, should you wish to call ahead and visit them.