June 2001

Global-Scene -
St. Tropez

   The French have said that Americans drink Coca-Cola as if it were Champagne. Well, in St. Tropez everyone drinks Champagne as if it were Coca-Cola ‹ all the time. This is where the rich and famous arrive on 100 foot yachts, fully stocked with chilled Crystal, luxury cars and runway models, and faire la fête for the months of July and August. St. Tropez is a simple little alcove wedged between Marseille and Cannes on the côte d'azure. Its small town size, however, does not interfere with its cosmopolitan standards of debauchery.
   A twenty-four hour period in St. Tropez (which is difficult to refer to as a day since morning, noon and night seem to blend together) is a triangular journey between three destinations. First stop, La Voile Rouge (the Red Flag) is a lunch spot with its own private beach and nineteen year old Brazilian dancer, who as the afternoon progresses is more and more willing to showcase the three extra joints she can access on her lower back. Although the food is adequate, the crowd is exquisite, but unless you come from a family whose real estate holdings are easily spotted from satellite imagery, you'll be waving the white flag by the time your check comes.
   A word of warning: St. Tropez is not for the faint-walleted. The town seems to deploy a disruptive electro-magnetic field which disables the operation of any vehicle retailing for less than $85,000 (thankfully, motor scooters are unaffected and rented daily). In fact, if you have ever wondered where all the concept cars go when they're done touring auto shows, you now know the answer.
   Anyway, on to the second stop. When evening comes, the restaurant of choice is Villa Romana, a beautiful half-outdoors gourmet dining experience where the likes of Russian mobsters, Hollywood movie stars, and second cousins of dictators, each with their accompanying entourages, gather and break bread near each other, but not with each other. As with the other entities forming the St. Tropez triumvirate, if your name's not on the list, you're not getting in. So for those of us from lower castes, your best bet is to stay at a fine (read expensive) hotel and make nice with the concierge (read tip big), which by the way, brings us to St. Tropez' final and most exclusive destination.
   Le Cave du Roi, located in the Hotel Byblos, is something like a Calvin Klein or Revlon cosmetics commercial come to life, only all this beauty and opulence has been condensed together into a tightly packed club holding 300 people. Everyone is drinking (you guess what), dancing, flashing cover girl smiles, and all in all comfortable in the knowledge that a fun night on the town should and does cost more than a Volvo. Some people have suggested that these billionaire playboys and magazine selling cover girls are in fact miserable on the inside, to which I would add only that if it's true, I've never been more convinced that misery not only loves company, but Crystal.