Ramatuelle.

In the hillsides hanging over St. Tropez rests Ramatuelle - perhaps the most picturesque and quaint of all French villages (a very big assertion indeed). If the town of St. Tropez can be tacky in its dripping wealth and gold and glitz, Ramatuelle is its unfailingly sophisticated and understated cousin. Even the plants in Ramatuelle are labeled to acculturate its residents and the tourists who dip in. Ramatuelle is also the much classier address for a July/August summer home if you are French. Both give way to fabulous beaches and restaurants, but the beaches near Ramatuelle (where I've been venturing) are like the village, sparser (no pot-bellied Russians with big cigars surrounded by 20-something yacht dolls, blessedly), rugged, pristine - unsullied.



I rode my lovely little scooter up the steep grade to reach the town, whose streets turn inward on themselves like an escargot. Walking through the folds of the tiny cobbelstone paths, you peek around each corner breathless that the next street could be any more convincing than the one you've just tiptoed down. From the color of the shutters and doors to the sound of people humming in the shower (this town is calm) and a guy dressed in white linen whistling, puckered lips to the heavens, calling up to his cherie in a window above (note the lack of any car/scooter sounds - the interior streets are perambulator only), you want to breathe, hear and witness Ramatuelle, I promise.



























And, of course, blessing the land just below the hilltop of Ramatuelle are glowing green vineyards and lavender-studded chapels.