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.
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