Le Lavandou, the French Riviera on a budget
I first discovered Le Lavandou from a very kind follower who shared it with us as a place we’d probably love to visit and she certainly wasn’t wrong. It’s a bit of a cheaper way to visit the south of France away from the glitz of St Tropez and the likes but with so many incredible beaches within easy reach.
The low down;
we booked BA return flights to Marseille from London Heathrow, picked up a car and then drove along the coast for a couple of hours to reach Le Lavandou. We stayed in an Airbnb apartment, which I wouldn’t recommend as it had no WiFi or air con and the owners were a bit of a nightmare! It had a pool but French pool complexes can be a bit rigid on the times you can use them, it shut mid afternoon for siestas and it was very much a French owned apartment block rather than a tourist place. So although I can’t recommend specific accommodation, it was an amazing town to base yourselves in if you want somewhere budget friendly and walkable to lots of different beaches and a town.
Le Lavandou is a slightly strange town from the outside, it’s quite retro and not exactly beautiful architecture wise. BUT it’s such an amazing location, has 4 beaches an easy walk that’s buggy friendly - always a win for us on holiday not to have to get in the car all the time, you can drive easily if you want to go to St Tropez or the like. And there’s a ferry to Ile de Porquerolles which was just the dream. There’s a great, huge supermarket in town, amazing patisseries and a huge promenade. We spent our days walking around to different beaches, you could go left all the way round to St Clair which was like a little Greek bay. Or to the right to Le Faviere.
We had a week and spent most of the time enjoying the beaches in town & mainly cooked in our Airbnb, we adore French produce from the supermarkets, local shops and market. It worked really well for us with the kids at that age, Freya was just over 3 and Raffy was 14 months and both still napped in the middle of the day so we mainly went out in the mornings, came back for naps then had an afternoon by the pool before dinner & an evening ice cream walk. I actually don’t find French restaurants very child friendly. We’d go out every evening for some of the best ice cream we’ve ever had!
We’d definitely go back, we actually dream of driving there with our caravan in future as there were some fab looking campsites right on the beach!
Don’t miss:
- our favourite patisserie was Maison Sarroche and gelato spot was Le Palais de Glaces
- the incredible market on a Thursday and leave some room in your luggage for the baskets!
- Jardin du Belvedere, this wooden park with a big pirate ship set in an olive grove and there’s a smaller playground in town although we got bitten to pieces from mosquitoes when we went!
- Going to Bormes le Mimosa, one of the most beautiful towns in the south of France. Look up when they have their brocantes!
- Booking the ferry to Ile de Porquerolles for a day. It’s cheaper and more regular from Hyreres but depends where you’re staying. I’ve written a separate blog post about our daytrip there here but it was a real highlight! One of those days you hope you’ll remember forever.
- We had planned to go to St Tropez or Port Grimaud but in the end we loved where we were!
- Chateau Leoube, by the owners of Daylesford, is just around the corner and looked well worth a visit. We don’t drink and had two small children at the time but it looked beautiful for a special meal and seemed to have a private beach part of it too.
- Plage de St Clair, reminded us of a Greek bay. Lots of glamorous beach bars there
- Plage de la Faviere, some great looking beach bar restaurants on the walk round and beautiful views
- Plage de le Cavalier was worth the drive for an afternoon. Small town, beautiful beach.
- We spent an evening at this beach, another stunning spot with free parking on the road
- This beach was on my list but we didn’t end up making it there. €12 to park.
It was pretty much everything we’d want from a European beachy holiday!
You can see more on my story highlights from the trip here.
Have you been?