Southern France, Pt. 2
Train to Sainte-Maxime
Leaving Nice, we traveled by train + bus to Sainte-Maxime.
Sainte-Maxime is a small town across the bay from better-known city of Saint-Tropez.
This was the right choice, as it was a shorter trip from Nice and a quieter/less crowded town to stay than Saint-Tropez.
Train ride:
This was a high throughput train corridor:
And then on bus (with a dog):
In Sainte-Maxime my wife discovered that she had left her backpack on the bus, including her passport (a crisis!).
We spoke with a very nice Dutch employee at the tourism office in Sainte-Maxime who recommended that we wait at our bus stop for the driver to come back in the return direction.
This worked! My wife hurried onto the bus and hurried off, having located her backpack.
We had an amazing dinner:
We made plans for the next morning to take the 15-minute ferry ride across the bay to Saint-Tropez (departures every 40 minutes).
Sainte-Maxime/Saint-Tropez
Before we got on the boat we walked Sainte-Maxime in daylight:
Beautiful Vespa:
E-bike rentals:
Micromobility is verboten on some pedestrian sidewalks:
We rode the ferry from Sainte-Maxime to Saint-Tropez (~15 minutes):
Saint-Tropez was very wealthy–no signs of poverty, and very little ethnic diversity.
It is extremely walkable and dense for the most part in a small footprint:
There was a televised cooking competition of chefs from the area, and a little market:
We aimlessly hiked along the coast line to some interesting sites:
Paparazzi?
The vehicles in Saint-Tropez were fascinating in their own right:
A Tesla Cybertruck or Ford F-150 could not navigate the streets, and I cannot imagine how the population would react if a driver tried to do so.
Parking enforcement was active:
An entire parking lot reserved for 2-wheel vehicles, given how scarce real estate is:
There were some delightful baked goods:
Interesting subterranean public garage dropoffs:
Returning to Saint-Maxime by ferry again, we had a really nice walk:
Father-daughter meal–one smoking a cigarette and the other a vaporizer:
