Tahiti Beach

Tahiti sits at the northern end of Pampelonne, closest to Saint-Tropez, and it is where the myth of this beach actually began. The Palmari family bought the land in 1952, and in 1956 Roger Vadim filmed And God Created Woman here with Brigitte Bardot, after which the bay stopped being farmland with a shack on it. Bardot bought a house nearby, and the beach has been trading on that moment ever since, mostly without embarrassment. What exists now is closer to a small resort than a beach bar: a twenty-room hotel with a pool set back from the sand, a gourmet restaurant, two bars, a pizzeria and a self-service counter, plus a run of shops selling jewellery and clothing, a hairdresser, a beauty salon and a gym. The sand is the same fine pale stuff as the rest of Pampelonne, the water shelves gently, and the deckchairs and parasols are deliberately bright rather than tastefully neutral. Arriving by boat is normal here, and there is a dock and shuttle for it, along with parking, showers, supervised swimming, wifi and step-free access to the restaurant. The private beach is reserved for guests of the establishment. In practice Tahiti works best as a full-day base rather than a lunch stop, and it stays open until one in the morning.