Paris

Getting out of Toulon, let's continue westwards. Stay on the D 559, pass the untidy and not so attractive village of LA SEYNE. From here you have a double choice. Or you continue on the D 559 towards SIX FOURS les PLAGES and SANARY sur MER, or take the D 18 to visit the peninsula of SAINT-MANDRIER. This little trip will be only interesting to have a nice look from the highest point on Toulon, Cap Scié and iles d'Hyères.
You can return to SIX FOURS les PLAGES via LES SABLETTES, a better frequented resort with a large fine sand beach. SIX FOURS les PLAGES, maybe the most important bath resort on the peninsula, is not so attractive, with a simple boulevard.

Cap Scie

Another possibility is the very nice roundtrip you can do on the Cap SCIE in the SCIE peninsula. A pity it was so degraded by mass tourism. At its southern point, a chapel lies, inviting. It's the Chapel of Notre Dame de Mai and sits on a high cliff top that drops sharply towards the sea. In the fisher village of LE BRUSC you can take a boat to the ILES des EMBIEZ.
This is the largest island of the peninsula (95 ha), with a few gravel beaches and very fit for anglers. A small sail port, some vineyards, salty swamps and pine woods. It is the main location for the "Paul Ricard Fondation Oceanographique", dedicated to research of the mysteries of the sea and especially about the sea pollution.
But let's finally get to pink and white resort of SANARY sur MER.
This resort was, in the beginning of the 20th century, and certainly during WW II, an important meeting place for German artists and intellectuals like Thomas Mann, Arnold Zweig who fled the town when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. You will be surprised on arrival. No touristy inconveniences here, no tourist flocks and millions of souvenir shops. People go simply to their daily work and the shops are there to fulfil the needs of its population. Even the terraces are mainly peoples by the Sanary citizens. This gives us opportunity to experience the feeling of how the Mediterranée must have looked shortly before WWII. Well protected by the surrounding hills, it has a long, agreeable boulevard, a large park, 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, A small port, surrounded by palm trees.
North of Sanary, on the road to Toulon and then left to Les Playes, an interesting architectural discovery in a place called Six-Fours. A gross stone blocks church of which certain parts date of the 5th to 6th century: NOTRE-DAME-DE-PEPIOLE. It has three large apses and the offer tone found at the entrance must indicate that this place must have been sacred already for the Ligurians.
But now up to BANDOL, set in arc of wooden hills. But that's for next article.

Bibliography

Mary Blume, "Cote d'Azur. Inventing the French Riviera" (Thames and Hudson, London 1982), The Twenties, From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period, by Edmund Wilson (Cannes 1921), Les Calanques jusqu'à Sanary, by Denante and Lucchesi (Sormiou, Edisud) , "Tamaris" de George Sand, " Six-Fours " by François Jouglas, "Wider Willen im Paradies. Deutsche Schriftsteller im Exil in Sanary-sur-Mer", by Manfred Flügge
(Unwilling in paradise. Exiled German writers in Sanary-sur-Mer) Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996)