L'Almanarre. The end of the world 10 minutes from Hyères.
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There are places you don't show on Instagram. Not because they're not beautiful. Because they're too beautiful for that.
Almanarre is one of them.
A strip of sand between two waters
To get there, you leave Hyères via the Giens peninsula. The road narrows. The buildings disappear. To the left, the Mediterranean. To the right, the salt marshes, the pink of the flamingos, the white of the salt. In front, a strip of sand stretches between the two as if someone had drawn a line with a ruler on the map.
That's Almanarre. A dune cord several kilometers long that separates the sea from the lagoon. On one side, the waves, on the other, silence. On the same side, always, the wind.
Because Almanarre is a windy beach.
The Mistral descends from the Alps with a regularity that meteorologists envy. The Tramontana passes by from time to time to remind you that there's also a north wind. And between the two, a constant sea breeze that has been making the sails of kitesurfers and windsurfers flap for decades.
It's the most renowned watersports spot in the Mediterranean. World Kitesurfing Championship. Windsurfing competitions. Riders who come from all over to set their gear on this piece of sand and get into the water as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
What no one tells you about Almanarre
What the guides don't mention is that Almanarre is a double beach.
When the wind blows too strong on the sea side, you go to the other side. The salt marsh lagoon is flat, calm, almost unreal. Shallow turquoise water that warms up quickly and that you can walk across to the sandbanks. Pink flamingos stroll there with complete indifference to the humans who photograph them.
There is something strange and beautiful about this coexistence. The bustling beach on one side, the still lagoon on the other. Riders soaring into the air to starboard. Flamingos walking silently to port.
Almanarre is a place of contrasts that do not seek to resolve themselves.
The ruins under the sand
What truly no one tells you is that there's a Roman city under your feet.
Olbia. Founded by the Greeks of Marseille in the 4th century BC, then occupied by the Romans for six centuries. A port, warehouses, baths, houses. All buried under the sandy strip of Almanarre.
Archaeological digs have revealed mosaics, amphorae, coins. An entire city that chose this precise spot, between two waters, to settle. Not by chance. Because it is one of the most beautiful and strategic places in the Mediterranean.
Two thousand years later, people are still doing the same thing. They arrive, they put their belongings on the sand, and they don't leave.
The 5 PM light
If you've never been there, note this: the light at Almanarre at 5 PM in July is something that cannot be properly described.
The sun descends towards Les Maures. It passes over the salt marshes and takes on that color between yellow and orange that only exists in Provence and only in the late afternoon. The water turns gold. The salt sparkles. The flamingos become bright pink.
This is exactly the moment we try to capture. Not in a photo, not in a video. But in a piece of clothing you put on and keep long after.
That's why we do what we do at Bleu mon Jules. Not clothes. Memories you can wear.
How to get there
From Hyères, take the direction of the Giens peninsula. Follow the salt road. Park the car as soon as the road turns to sand. Walk.
Almanarre doesn't announce itself. It just happens.
What to bring
For a day at Almanarre, the wind changes everything you wear. No overly light linen that flies away or a T-shirt you regret from the first gust of Mistral.
The striped shirt open over a T-shirt, heavy enough to stay put in the wind. The striped trousers for the journey there, the terry shorts for after swimming. The cap, essential, pulled low on the forehead.
And in the evening, when the light turns gold and the wind finally dies down, the Bleu de Chine jacket thrown over the shoulders.
Almanarre deserves pieces that last all day long. That's exactly what we tried to create.
→ Discover the Summer 2026 collection
Bleu mon Jules · Saint-Tropez · "when a color becomes memories"
