Date of visit: May 15, 2013, around 3:00 p.m.
I’ve been driving in France for almost 5 years now, starting with my first European drive in 2006, although there was a period of time when I was mainly driving in Germany and Central Europe.
Especially in the south of France, the Provence Côte d’Azur region is the most driven area.
Gassin, our 32nd stop on this trip and 145th in total, is a beautiful village on the outskirts of Saint-Tropez, a famous port town on the Côte d’Azur.
The village is located on a slightly elevated plateau and from the village you can see the town of Saint-Tropez and its cove.
Even though I have traveled to the Côte d’Azur many times before, I finally got to visit this village that seems so close yet so far away.
It took us 3 hours and 30 minutes to get here from Montcru, our first stop on the 15th, using the motorway.
That’s why I came here with high expectations…. To be honest, it was a village with a strong sense of disappointment.
If you just look at the photos, it doesn’t look so bad, but maybe it’s because I’ve been seeing only medieval towns for a long time, and there are few places and landscapes where I can feel the oldness and history.
Stone houses are also a little bit in these back alleys.
However, perhaps because of the proximity of St. Tropez or the good view from the hill, there were a lot of shops and restaurants.
It was still May and it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, so there were no people in the restaurant, but I wonder if it will be crowded during the vacation season.
Then, what made this village so unimpressive was the way we got here.
Once we got off the highway and headed to the port town of St. Tropez, I had high hopes that it would be a coastal drive…
I couldn’t see the ocean as much as I thought I would, and the road from the highway down to St. Tropez was just one lane and very congested….
In addition to being annoyed, I was tired anyway because I had a long drive.
Although I was able to reach Gassan, which I failed to visit many times, the result was not so good impression.
I don’t think I would have gone to this village if it hadn’t been selected as a beautiful village.
This is the only reason we came to the Côte d’Azur. Back to the west, back to Provence. It’s a four-hour drive again.
公式サイト：Gassin
