Grimaud has two faces: the hilltop medieval village, watched over by its ruined castle, and Port Grimaud, the "Provençal Venice" designed by François Spoerry in the 1960s. This private lakeside city has more than 7 km of canals, and every villa has its own private mooring. Our drivers know the three main entrances to Port Grimaud, the authorised visitor parking areas, and the access rules for each residential zone. Port Grimaud's clientele is highly international: Italian, German, Swiss, British. Our multilingual drivers handle airport transfers (Nice for the most part), daily shuttles to Pampelonne beaches, and hourly chauffeur service for Gulf tours. The Port Grimaud ↔ Saint-Tropez route via the western road takes 20 minutes off-season, up to 45 minutes in August (alternative itineraries known).
Port Grimaud: three entrances, three different addresses
Port Grimaud is a lakeside town built on the water, organised in three districts with three separate entrances. They do not connect directly by car, and picking the wrong one usually means driving around the whole thing or crossing on foot with the luggage. So we always ask for the house number or the quay name, never just "Port Grimaud". That detail is the difference between a drop-off at the door and a quarter of an hour walking across footbridges.
The medieval village and the D559
Grimaud village, perched around its ruined castle, is minutes from the port but an entirely different proposition: narrow lanes, limited parking, access by a winding road. We drop off near the square, as the heart of the village is pedestrian. Between the two, the D559 is the road linking the whole Golfe, and its congestion point. In July and August the Grimaud–Saint-Tropez stretch can go from 20 to 40 minutes at the end of the day. We set off accordingly, sometimes preferring the detour via Cogolin.
A central position in the Golfe
Grimaud has a real geographic advantage: Saint-Tropez is 10 km away, Sainte-Maxime 8 km, Cogolin 5 km, and access to the A8 via Le Muy is more direct than from the peninsula. That makes it a practical base for a stay that is not limited to Saint-Tropez. For airport transfers the gain is clear: about 1h30 to Nice, an hour to Toulon-Hyères, without crossing the peninsula at peak times.
Typical trips from Grimaud
- Nice Côte d'Azur Airport≈ 90 km · ≈ 1h30
- Toulon-Hyères Airport≈ 66 km · ≈ 1h05
- Saint-Tropez centre≈ 10 km · ≈ 20 min
- Pampelonne≈ 18 km · ≈ 30 min
- Sainte-Maxime≈ 8 km · ≈ 10 min
- Monaco≈ 112 km · ≈ 1h45
Places served in Grimaud
- Port Grimaud, lakeside city
- Hilltop village of Grimaud
- Château de Grimaud
- Grimaud market (Thursdays)
- Gulf of Saint-Tropez