Cannes v St Tropez: which is better?

Times

12 hours ago

Pitting these two Riviera rivals against each other is more honourable duel than bar-room brawl — you'd be hard-pushed to find more elegant opponents. The names of both have become synonymous with sun-soaked Gallic luxury, and while there are similarities — both destinations, beloved of Hollywood A-listers, offer a good line in beaches, boats and boutiques — there are significant differences which may sway you in favour of one or the other.
While both are titans of tourism, their physical size is an obvious point of contrast. Cannes is a city of 75,000 people; St Tropez is a small seaside town with less than 4,000 residents. As a result, high-season crowds are more heavily felt in the latter, where 80,000 visitors a day can swamp the picturesque streets that inspired Matisse, Chagall and their fellow Fauvists. Visit off-season if you want to sense the small fishing village that existed before the jet set came in their superyachts. The candy-coloured old town is undeniably gorgeous, as are many of the bronzed and beautiful visitors, who flock to the beach clubs and chichi restaurants.
With few places to park and no railway station, St Tropez is designed for languid, lazy days and sybaritic nights. Cannes, on the other hand, offers not only more action within its environs — from markets and museums to the Lérins Islands in the bay — but is also a better base from which to visit the wider Côte d'Azur, not least because its hotel prices are a little more reasonable. However, the city isn't lacking in glamour, from the beach clubs lining La Croisette promenade to the star-studded film festival, usually held in May.
As busy as St Tropez and Cannes may be in high season, the summer months bring swimmable waters, sun-kissed days, night markets and plenty of art and music festivals. And that's without mention of the celebrations around Bastille Day, which arrive with a bang on July 14 as fireworks are launched from beaches along the coast.
Our guide sets the two combatants to contest everything from beaches and attractions to hotels and restaurants — en garde!
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Winner It's a tie … both have fabulous beaches
Cannes' main seafront sprawls along the palace hotel-lined La Croisette promenade as one big, golden beach. A handful of spots are public, such as Plage du Palais des Festivals (below the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, venue for the film festival). But the expensive private beach areas are the places to be seen, especially the plages of the Carlton and Martinez hotels, where champagne flows by the bucketful and A-listers snack on lobster with their feet in the sand. When you need to escape, the down-to-earth Lérins Islands, a short boat hop away, have charming creeks without the crowds, and shaded paths through wild forest.
St Tropez, on the other hand, is all about beach parties. It has its share of restful spots — butterscotch-sand Plage des Graniers and pebbly Plage de la Ponche, amid the pastel-coloured houses below the citadel — but it's the beach clubs along Plage de Pampelonne that get the mega-yacht crowd going. Celeb-tastic experiences await along its sands in places such as Le Club 55 (created when Roger Vadim shot And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot) and La Réserve à la Plage, where the jet set come to swim, bronze and fine-dine.
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Winner St Tropez
Cannes' seafront beach clubs are glorious spots for cocktails, especially at sunset, when the skies are striped Gucci pink and orange. But you can't beat its rooftop bars, where your spritz comes with 360-degree Med views and laid-back DJ sounds. You'll find a bustling bar scene in the streets behind the promenade — in trendy wine bars and British-style pubs, where punters spill out on to the pavement — and also in the city's three casinos.
But for sheer fun, St Tropez wins hands down — for its posh Pampelonne beach clubs (again), but also for the Vieux Port in the old town, where celebs in flip-flops party on mega-yachts as champagne-fuelled crowds watch on from the terrace of Café Sénéquier. You'll find a more laid-back vibe behind the port, on plane tree-lined Place des Lices, a market square where locals sip bière over a game of pétanque. At sunset, the best spots are at Plage de la Bouillabaisse, where the beach bars have views across the shimmering gulf on to the twinkling lights of nearby Port Grimaud.
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Winner St Tropez
Beyond the Croisette's sea-facing palaces (where the food comes with whopping price tags), some of the loveliest eateries in Cannes are amid the steep, meandering lanes of the old town area of Le Suquet. Here, Provençal food features on most menus on your way up towards the Notre-Dame d'Espérance church — the perfect spot for a post-prandial walk thanks to its panoramic look-out terrace. Be sure to try local specialities such as soupe au pistou (a veggie and bean soup) and daube Provençale (red wine-marinated beef stew).
But (as you'd expect in a town of such overt hedonism) St Tropez is possibly even more gourmet, with everything from Michelin-starred restaurants to hip seafood shacks to see and be seen in. It's fortunately not all about the bling, either: the creative dishes on the plates often shine brighter than the stars tucking into them. And many of the highlights — think artful reinterpretations of classic Mediterranean fare — are found in restaurants (such as La Table de la Messardière) beyond the seafront. Don't leave without munching on the town's namesake cake — tarte Tropézienne, a brioche-like delight filled with vanilla cream, created in the town in the Fifties.
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Winner Cannes — by a sliver
In most people's minds, the words 'Cannes' and 'hotels' equate to beachfront film-star haunts like the Carlton and the Martinez. But behind the Croisette, in the town centre and north of the train station (towards Le Cannet), there are plenty of lesser-known gems that'll place you in the action, without the price tag.
St Tropez is smaller, so doesn't have quite as much choice (hence Cannes winning here). But what it does have are luxurious hidey-holes nestled in the lush hills just above the old town. One such place is La Bastide de Saint Tropez, a peach-coloured manor surrounded by gardens. Back in the centre, the Hôtel de Paris — where some junior suite dwellers can yacht-spot from their windows — famously attracted everyone from Édith Piaf to Clark Gable. Or try country-chic La Ferme d'Augustin — a fraction of the price and very pretty.
For Garbo-esque isolation in Cannes, you'll want the hills around the nearby perched village of Mougins, or the rocky seafront just west of central Cannes, in Théoule-sur-Mer. Moroccan-themed Tiara Yaktsa is a secluded standout, with endless clifftop views over the azure sea.
For a secluded splurge in St Tropez, bolt down at the super-romantic Château de la Messardière, surrounded by landscaped gardens and umbrella pines.
Winner Cannes
The seafront is a must-see when you're in Cannes — whether you do it on foot, along the Croisette (via the Allée des Stars, Cannes' handprint-filled answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame), in a posh hotel in the beach area, or by boat.
But it's just a fraction of the offerings: Forville market in the old town drips with fragrant, Provençal delights; fashion boutiques congregate around Rue d'Antibes, and a hike through the panoramic Croix des Gardes hillside takes you into an arboretum of mimosa trees (in peak bloom in February). Or you could sail to Île Sainte-Marguerite, home to the fortress that once held the Man in the Iron Mask and a magical underwater sculpture museum (accessible by snorkelling).
When the beach parties get too much, St Tropez does have a few diversions up its sleeve: there's art to see in Musée de l'Annonciade (in a 16th-century chapel filled with the works of 20th-century greats such as Matisse and Signac) and at Maison des Papillons, a quirky butterfly museum amid pastel-painted former fishermen's homes.
Wine-tasting abounds on the peninsula, at places such as Château Minuty, a glorious vineyard near the pretty hilltop village of Gassin. For sports, you can try Flyboarding and parasailing off Pampelonne, or hiking along the wild Sentier du Littoral, a spectacular coastal path that glorifies St Tropez's sumptuous natural setting.
Cannes
It's a very close call but Cannes just pips St Tropez to the post. Swinging in Cannes' favour is its accessibility, both in terms of prices and location. After all, you don't come to this part of France just to stop in one place. You hop around from bar to restaurant, and from boat to party. So having good transport links will certainly help you get from A to B, while every penny saved on hotels will allow you to get more out of the experience. Then there's the fact that Cannes is just so much bigger, absorbing those summer crowds with ease — something that St Tropez often struggles with. If it's any consolation, St Tropez is just a short drive away for those big nights out.Additional reporting by Oliver Berry and Joanna Booth
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