48 hours in Toulon's harbor

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur - Corsica - Monaco/2023

Surprisingly untouched by invasive tourism, Toulon is now in full swing behind its southern shutters overlooking the harbor. Hyères, on the other hand, stretches from the heights of the Villa Noailles, where the most cutting-edge international fashion, photography and design festivals are held, to the tip of the Giens peninsula, a haven of biodiversity and a landing stage for the Golden Isles. These two Var towns, linked both by the TPM Metropole and the two parts of the Design Parade Festivals, are today flashing with a real lifestyle and artistic dynamism on the radar of destinations to be explored as a matter of urgency.

Under the Côte d'Azur sun, in contrast to the noisy bling of the Riviera or the suddenly inescapable hipness of Marseille, Toulon and Hyères, only 18 kilometers apart, boast a gentle Mediterranean lifestyle with a delicious vintage ma non troppo postcard air, mixed with an undeniable cultural dynamism. It's a cocktail that's perfectly in tune with lifestyles that have been thrown into turmoil by the pandemic. Less than 4 hours by TGV from Paris, Toulon continues to attract new residents: students attracted by the quality of its educational facilities (École Camondo Méditerranée and Kedge Business School will be moving into the new eco-quartier de la Connaissance et de la Créativité in 2019 - a hospital wasteland in the heart of the city, skilfully converted by Marseille architect Corinne Vezzoni), as well as young entrepreneurs in the tech, events and bistronomy sectors and other digital nomads. All are, of course, seduced by the city's 300 days of sunshine a year, its crescendo of cultural and artistic events, its affordable housing stock and the wonderful natural surroundings on the outskirts of the city. A singular geography, almost a fusion of sea and mountains. On one side, Mont Faron and its cable car; on the other, the military harbor, the port of Mourillon and micro-calanques such as Anse Méjean, with its huts clinging to the rock. Here, you can feast on grilled sardines at L'Escale, a waterfront address that you're reluctant to share, so much so that you'd like to keep it to yourself. In town, the architectural landscape is best explored in modernist flashback mode. Addictive, given that this era of artistic vacationing on the shores of the Mediterranean is so deeply rooted in the collective imagination of all generations. Long controversial, like Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse in Marseille, the Frontale du Port built in the 50s by Jean de Mailly, with a show apartment designed by Charlotte Perriand, has now been rehabilitated in every sense of the word. Just behind, the narrow streets and squares of the historic district, long nicknamed "Little Chicago", have turned the page on their bad reputation. Over 500 facades have been restored, 100 streets and squares renovated and 11 blocks restructured. The facelifted downtown area is now home to galleries, bookshops, design boutiques and food shops. The Halles Esther Poggio, a magnificent restored Art Deco building that reopened in autumn 2021 as a food court, is always busy. Located between the Opéra and the Liberté theater, Le Télégraphe (Toulon's first telegraph, which later became a PTT canteen) is now a multi-purpose venue, cocktail bar and restaurant (Beam). With its facade entirely covered by a fresco by Alexandre Benjamin Navet, winner of the third Design Parade Toulon in 2017, L'hôtel des Arts hosts ambitious design exhibitions every year, thanks to an unprecedented partnership between the Toulon Provence Métropole headed by Hubert Falco (who is also mayor of Toulon) and the Centre Pompidou. After Ronan Bouroullec's drawings in the spring, Marie-Ange Brayer, Chief Curator, Design and Industrial Prospective at the Centre Pompidou, will continue to curate the "Seconde Nature" exhibition, which will also include pieces from the MAD, Mobilier National and CNAP collections. It's hard to imagine a better example of collaboration and decentralization. Which, by the way, means giving Jean-Pierre Blanc his due. For 37 years, the director of the Centre d'Art Villa Noailles has worked tirelessly and passionately to ensure that the most cutting-edge creativity can flourish and be celebrated under the Var sun. This mission has been more than successful with the four international Festivals it has created. Those dedicated to fashion, photography and object design (Design Parade Hyères) take place at the Villa Noailles, a pure manifesto of modern architecture from the 1920s, designed by Robert Mallet Stevens for Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, while since 2016 Toulon has hosted the interior architecture section (Design Parade Toulon) at the former Évéché. And, who knows, maybe one day we'll be sleeping in the former Pipady torpedo launcher that Jean-Pierre Blanc would like to see transformed into a hotel, he who was the inspired DA of the Reine-Jane in Hyères?