Architecture & beaches: This town has all, except crowds

On a hot Sunday morning in July, my sister Adèle and I walked through the narrow entrance to the Villa Noailles in Hyères, the beautiful French medieval town perched above the sea and lying almost midway between Marseille to the west and St-Tropez to the east.

- ROSLYN SULCAS

Noailles, a superbly glamorous, deep-pocketed aristocratic pair who were friends and patrons of Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray and seemingly every other member of the early 20th-century avant-garde. So when I heard that a Parisian acquaintance had moved to the town, and was renting out rooms in a lovely house she had bought almost next door to the Villa Noailles, I immediately booked for my husband and myself, suggesting to Adèle that she join us.

The villa is now one of France's national cultural centres for contemporary art and home to both the annual Festival International de mode, photographie et accessoires, which includes a photographic exhibition, and to changing exhibitions.