Another Provence loop

I hope the blog readers will excuse the repetition of yet another day spent riding in these wonderful mountains.  There are so many remote areas and green-line roads to explore.  Today Rob had mapped out a loop that included some very minor roads and ended with a new section of coast.

harvested cork oak

We started west along the coast in heavy traffic (30 minutes to go 10K) until we could turn north in Grimaud.  From then on the traffic was light to nonexistent.  Like last night's ride, the hilly area is covered with pine and cork oak.  Today we noticed many of the latter from which  the cork bark had been harvested.  The cut section shows a dark reddish bark after harvesting.  For more information see: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_oak.

We stopped at the village of Collobrieres--recommended in Lonely Planet--which was not as interesting as expected but did provide lunch (again, a bit of a disappointment.  Next time we will choose the more crowded restaurant).  

La Tour Fondue near Hyeres

The loop took us down to the coast at Hyeres and the adjacent peninsula from which ferries depart for several offshore islands including Porquerolles.  We followed the coast road east towards St.-Tropez, noting a number of pleasant communities with the usual sandy beach and marina.  We were not much impressed by St.-Tropez.  Several five-star hotels were hidden from view, but the seaside and town didn't strike us as anything special.  Are we jaded by Cannes, Nice etc? Or did we miss some section of town that warrants its reputation?  We returned to our Sainte-Maxime hotel at 8:30.  Tomorrow we leave the Mediterranean and head into Provence and beyond.