The Pays de Fayence is a string of hilltop villages in the Var, lined up along a balcony above a farming plain on the edge of the Alpes-Maritimes. Seillans is listed among the most beautiful villages in France, Mons has the widest view in the region, and the plain below holds one of the largest gliding centres in Europe.
They are visible from one another, standing on their promontories a few kilometres apart: Fayence, Tourrettes, Callian, Montauroux, Saint-Paul-en-Forêt, Seillans, Mons, Bargemon, Tanneron. Each has its church, its stepped lanes, its fountain, its viewpoint. You will not do nine in a day, and there is no reason to: two or three are enough, chosen according to mood.
The area has one quality that sets it apart from the coast: it lives all year. These villages are not seasonal sets; there are bakeries, schools and cafés open in January. That is also what makes them likeable.
The most beautiful, and for that reason the most visited. Seillans spirals up to the remains of its castle, between stone houses covered in Virginia creeper, with vaulted passages, a fountain at every turn and a view dropping away over the hills. Max Ernst spent his last years here and is buried in the village; a collection of his work and Dorothea Tanning's can be seen there.
An hour's wandering, lunch on a terrace above the drop, and you move on. Avoid the middle of the day in August.
The highest and the most surprising. Mons sits at eight hundred metres, and from the Place Saint-Sébastien the view reaches, on a clear day, from the Estérel to Corsica. It is one of the widest in Provence. The village was repopulated in the fifteenth century by families from Liguria, and a Genoese dialect was still spoken here a century ago.
The drive up from Fayence, on a winding road through the woods, is part of the visit.
Fayence is the main town, with its shops, its market on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, and a clock tower looking out over the plain. Tourrettes, right beside it, has a curious neoclassical château built by one of Napoleon's generals on the model of a military academy in Saint Petersburg.
The plain between Fayence and Tourrettes holds the Fayence-Tourrettes aerodrome, one of the largest gliding centres in Europe, known for its air conditions. Two-seater introductory flights are booked in advance and last around half an hour: you are towed up by a light aircraft, released, and glide in silence above the villages, over Lac de Saint-Cassien and out towards the sea. It is the most memorable thing to do in the area, and few visitors think of it.
This guide is part of the address book of a private estate in Puget-sur-Argens, 40 minutes away, available for weddings and family stays. It is not open to visitors.
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