A little information about St Tropez on the Cote d'Azur and the camping holiday resources available in that part of southern France.

St Tropez is arguably the most upmarket place in France to take a camping holiday, and set where it is, right slap bang on the shore of the Baie de Saint Tropez but still looking out into the Mediterranean Sea, it is also in one of the most idyllic places in the country too.

Just Camping France has been recommended on Simonseeks.com. Simonseeks.com is a website where a community of travellers, journalists and celebrities can upload travel guides and share their tips on the best places to stay, eat and visit, for example St Tropez Hotels.

The problem with St Trop for we Brits, if there is a problem at all, lies in the getting there if you are on a self drive holiday, because it is one heck of a trek to do in one go, so we advise anyone doing this trip to have a night's rest somewhere along the route, or if that isn't possible then you should at least have more than one driver.

Well drivers it may be a long way, we make it 1219 KM or 762 miles to nearby Nice, but it is easy driving as most of your journey will be on the autoroutes. But having said that, it will cost you a fair few Euros because those roads have what they call Payages on them where you are charged for driving on each section of the autoroute.

Now then, you will not need to use a map to get to St Tropez if you follow our directions, apart that is, for the last few KM of your journey for which you should have been supplied directions by whichever company you have booked. If you haven't yet driven far in France you will find it to be far less stressful than in the UK, and with far better road signing too. Simply plot a route to follow the major cities which you will bypass and it is so easy.

We have to assume that for this trip that you will have taken the Dover/Calais ferry and so you need to get onto the A26 autoroute initially and head for:- Reims of the champagne fame, Troyes and Dijon, home of the famous French mustard, Macon, Lyon, Valence, Orange, Salon, Toulon and finally St Tropez where you will bask in the summer sun for a couple of weeks on your well appointed camping site.

Of course, everything about St. Tropez is famous, the beaches : Bouillabaisse Beach, Caneliers Beach, Salins Beach, about 40 altogether on the peninsula.

Then there is the Place des Lices where movie stars congregate to play a game of boules or sip Pastis under the plane trees. St. Tropez became "St. Trop" when the show business people, rich and famous, poor and famous, artists and writers all fell under the spell of this charming little port in the 1950's.

In the summer months it was possible to bump into Picasso, Francoise Sagan, Jacques Prévert and many others, and when Brigitte Bardot bought a house there in the 6O's the myth was installed for good. Since then St. Tropez has become the in vacation spot for chic Parisians and the international Jet Set.

If your camping holiday is of the self drive variety then you have the opportuniy to take some boxes of food with you because, unless your pockets are deep you won't be eating out much! This place is expensive by any standards, and the restaurants are used to wealthy people dining there so they price the menus accordingly.

One good thing about St Tropez and the region though is that your camping holiday won't cost you any more than any other area in France.