At seven in the morning, the port of Saint-Tropez belongs entirely to the fishermen. They have been there since four. Their boats are painted in colours that were bright once. They sell their catch directly from the dock — rascasse, loup, daurade — to the restaurants that will serve it for lunch and to the occasional villa cook who has been sent down early.
By nine, the market on the Place des Lices is in full motion. This is one of the great markets of Provence — not a tourist market, a real one, with farmers who have driven down from the hills before dawn and cheese sellers whose families have occupied the same spot for three generations.
The Saint-Tropez that exists before noon is the one worth knowing. It is quieter, more honest, and more beautiful than the version that appears in photographs. A villa with a good kitchen makes it possible to live inside it — to send someone to the market, to cook lunch slowly, to eat on a terrace while the mistral moves the cypress trees.
The best version of Saint-Tropez has always been the one the guidebooks arrive too late to describe.
