(part 2)

LA RÉSERVE NATURELLE RÉGIONALE AND THE NAVY BASE
"La réserve naturelle régionale", the unbuilt part of Héliopolis is, as the name implies, a natural reserve, with a number of signs explaining about the local plants. It's larger than it looks, very steep, and can be hard going on a hot day. The summit offers a rare view over the Navy base that occupies nine tenths of the island – no entry, of course. The base is used for missile testing, and its deep-water installations (apparently one at -1,300 m and one at -2,400 m) are sometimes used by foreign navies as well to simulate firing from submarines, and also by oil firms to test equipment for off-shore drilling. Strangely enough, if you look in the other direction towards the nearby island of Port-Cros, the maximum depth reached by the sea is -7 m between the two islands. Oh, and by the way: no missile testing from June to September, so you're safe.

NOT MUCH ENGLISH SPOKEN
For some reason Le Levant is more totally French than most other naturist places in France. There are very few Dutch people (whereas most naturist sites in France rely on the Dutch to keep going), and few other nationalities. For that reason it might be more difficult to find English-speaking waiters in bars and restaurants, although I've never tried.

FRIENDLY HUMAN RELATIONS
Le Levant is a small place: 85 houses, about 10 or 12 hotels or guest-houses or places with bungalows, and that's it. Many of the people there are local (there are about 100 people living on the island all the year round), or their relatives or friends, or guests who come year after year. The harbour tends to be more impersonal and more mixed, with the boats coming in from Hyères and Le Lavandou on the way to or from Port-Cros or Porquerolles, and so does "la Place" to which day-trippers tend to walk up; apart from those two places, most people that you meet will say hello to you ("Bonjour" most of the time, "Bonsoir" from 6 or 7 at night), and you should not be surprised if people start talking to you spontaneously: there is a strong sense of community on the island, where people refer to themselves as "Levantins" and almost regard themselves as a breed apart. For instance people who have finished reading a book while on the beach will often leave it on a low wall on the way back for someone else to pick it up and read it; there are also a couple of "book boxes" elsewhere where you can leave or pick up books or magazines.

PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH LE LEVANT BEING AN ISLAND
There are only a handful of vans on the island (two shuttle minibuses, one van for garbage collection, a police car, and an awful little tractor that belches black smoke - and I think that's it). Not having the necessity to build drives and garages for cars means that most houses can only be reached by footpaths, and if you add the steep slopes you can imagine the nightmare that building those houses must have been. Any sort of delivery is a problem; just pouring the concrete to make those slabs on the rocks by the shore must have taken a lot of planning, hundreds of metres from any place where a cement-mixer could be brought.
Usually off-season only one shuttle will wait for guests at the harbour; but last week one morning the two shuttles were there: we assumed that they were expecting a lot of new guests, and we asked the driver. It turned out that no, but the shuttle minibus needed its MOT renewed – which implied calling a ferry, picking up the minibus and taking it to a mechanic in Le Lavandou, and back. When a boat arrives at Le Lavandou you see the crew ferrying crates of food and ice-boxes for the shops and restaurants, and taking away the garbage and linen from the hotels.

ALL MOD CONS
Until 1989 there was no mains electricity on the island, in accordance with the wishes of the founders, the Durville brothers, who wanted Le Levant to be a place where you could get way from it all. Nowadays of course there is satellite TV, cell-phones and wifi, but you have to imagine how isolated the island was before those. All that remains from the past is that there is no mains water supply: every single house has to rely on a pump that brings water from a well. Consequently, except if  clearly stated, water from the tap should not be drunk – only bottled water.

VARIA
- There are mosquitoes on the island, although they are not as much of a scourge as they can be in some parts of Languedoc.
- Give a wide berth to "Le Rocher du Secret", the one hotel at Le Levant that describes itself as "libertine", where the management offers to "introduce you to other couples". In other words, nothing to do with naturism.
- Le Levant is gay-friendly, and many gay singles and gay couples come to visit. We've always found them friendly and very respectful of the other guests.

A fascinating insight to the island which I greatly enjoyed reading Jacques - thanks for posting it. Brought back pleasant memories of our brief visit. We went in May, so it was relatively quiet, but still a long hot walk up to the village...

I had to smile when you mentioned the lack of Dutch holidaymakers. I mean absolutely no ill towards nationals from the country, and I know exactly what you mean about other French naturist sites. But Sue and I always chuckle at how they love their caravans, and of course nothing wrong with that. But... they can't exactly take them to Levant!  😉

Mike

Advertisins a naturist mini-cruise around île du Levant next week. A rare opportunity of being nude on board while going round the island, including the nine tenths that are not naturist but a navy base. Pity we won't be able take part.

The parochial "civil war" on Île du Levant continues between those who adhere to the wishes of the founders and accept that you should dress as you walk across the main square, and those who regard Levant more as a resort and fight against this rule of "no nudity on the main square".
Here is a photo of a demonstration a few days ago to gain the right to nudity on the square. The banner reads "Naturists want to walk across the square naked. It's a simple as that".
The photo also shows the local policeman plus the broad-shouldered (and paunchy) reinforcement brought by boat from the Continent in case the demonstration turned ugly - not a very likely occurrence with a naturist demonstration, I suppose...

I assume nobody was arrested or summonsed for being naked in the square and that absolutely nothing will happen as a result of this demonstration.

I assume nobody was arrested or summonsed for being naked in the square and that absolutely nothing will happen as a result of this demonstration.

The law in France is that in case a demonstration is planning to trespass on public land - as is the case here ,île du Levant being a district in the city of Hyère and not private land - the local authorities have to be advised at least three days in advance, and then to give the go-ahead.
This is obviously the process that was followed here, as the "reinforcement" of the local one-man police force shows. In such cases, this being therefore a "legal" demonstration, the police are only supposed to see to it that the terms agreed to with the local authorities for the demonstration are kept and to protect the demonstrators against hostile reactions - very unlikely in this case...
So, no, let me reassure you John, no risk of being fined or arrested or anything for the demonstrators.

Not even for being naked in a place where the bye-laws (or the French equivalent) forbid total nudity?

The tiny war that stirs passions on île du Levant concerning the right to walk nude across the main village square is of course played out in front of the general public - contrary to campaigns that may occasionally be led within resorts, for instance to allow full nudity in the shops, which remain private.
And the French public loves it.
All the ingredients of a good comedy are to be found in this long-running story: Provence (a good French comedy needs a setting in sunshine, with the wonderfully "singing" accent of Southern France, and the relaxed attitude of the people in Provence, with cicadas in the background), interesting characters (Berty, who runs the shop "Le Bazar" and is the leader of the "full nudity" group on Le Levant, is one of those), fighting tooth and nail about somethings that seems risibly unimportant (this is all about a tiny square, which must be a good 100 feet across), some amount of nudity (to provide the titillating aspect of the story), and a policeman who is ridiculed (there is not much that the local policeman can do: if he allows people to walk nude across the square he is allowing the law to be flouted and he is regarded as inefficient, but if he fines them for faiiing to hide their bottoms while they walk across this short distance while it is absolutely legal to do it 50 feet away in all directions he is regarded as a rigid monomaniac).
In 2012 we had a TV comedy drama shown on television in France which was set on in imaginary naturist island called "île du Couchant" (meaning "island of the setting sun", which transparently stood for "île du Levant", which means "island of the rising sun). Among the main characters were a shop-owner campaigning for the right to be naked everywhere and organizing nude demos (the character with the blue hat on the two screenshots from the TV comedy), and a rigid policeman (seen in one of hte two screenshot).
For the French public, this is the continuation in real life of comedy TV... Summer without passions flaring up on the île du Levant would not be Summer for us 😉

Dear Jacques,

I am laughing out loud as I read your screenplay! We visited Ile du Levant again this summer, and as we do each time, wondered aloud why these rules exist. I am now reading a book about the Durvilles and the history of the early naturist movement, which in retrospect, makes it all the more absurd given how much things have changed since the village was chartered.

Would you be willing to let me use your photos and to some quotations from your remarks in a blog post on the Meandering Naturist? This is a great story, and would be a fun post to write.

That would be no probem at all, and I'd be delighted to help with the Meandering Naturist's blog.
But the photos are not mine: the screenshots are from the TV film "À dix minutes des naturistes" (2012), the photo of the demonstration is form the press (see my link to the "Var-Matin" newspaper).
The earlier photos that I published in this thread in late June are all mine - but I'm sure that you must also have shot great photos on the island. I have many more photos of our stay on île du Levant in June, and I'll be happy to let you have them if you think that they can help in any way.
I own a copy of the TV comedy that I mentioned, and I can extract more screenshots if you wish.
The archetype of the nudits/police/Provence French comedy is "Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez" (1964).
I find it interesting that you should be interested in the Durville brothers. Fascinating characters - but for them nudity was only one aspect among others of what they called naturism.

Thanks Jacques,

I'll go to work on the post in the coming days. Thanks for the links. And yes, we have many, many pictures of the island - I suspect you've seen my previous postings. We've always been fascinated by the place.

To that end, I'm only reading the book about the Durvilles as part of the history of naturism in France, and of course, they are a big part of that - but agreed - a TOTALLY different concept that what is happening today. Could start with food and alcohol consumption on the island and slide down into the sea from there!  ;D

That's what makes all this nonsense about the square so absurd. There are so many other things that have fallen away from the original charter of Heliopolis, why can't they just get past this little square at the top of the hill. We are among those people who walk all over the island completely nude, and will do whatever we must to avoid crossing the square so we don't have to wrap up. Crazy.

Thanks again. We will return next summer. Perhaps we'll see you there one day.

I believe that the reason why the harbour area and the main square are still no-nudity areas, and the path between the two, "Montée de l'Ayguade", remained a no-nudity area until the 90s, is that those were areas were supposed to be open to non-naturist visitors who would thus have access to a "safe" area without being submitted to the "shocking" sight of naked people - although why on earth textile visitors should come to Le Levant apart from the hope of catching sight of naturists, I really wonder...
As far as I can tell non-naturist visitors to the island have become very rare - one of the reasons being that the boat services have been designed with a view to keep the numerous textile visitors to Port-Cros away from Le Levant.
This probably explains why the old by-laws about those restricted areas seem more and more eccentric and pointless.

Agreed on all counts.

I see you live in Lyon and Bedoin. We lived for one year north of Aix-en-Provence. (And spend several weeks there each summer for work)

I see you live in Lyon and Bedoin. We lived for one year north of Aix-en-Provence. (And spend several weeks there each summer for work)

It would be a pleasure to meet you some time. Our first home is near Lyon; we spend most of the Summer at Bedoin where we have a tiny second home, and we usually manage about one week a month there.

Super. We have visited Belezy several times, and our daughter has "au pair family" in a village not far from Bedoin. I'm sure we'll be passing through again next summer.

A bientot...