"Hyères-les-Palmiers" a Hyères Travel Page by JLBG

Hyères, often called Hyères-les-Palmiers (Hyères-the-Palm-trees) is a city of 50,000 on the Côte d'Azur. As the "Commune d'Hyères" includes the whole Presqu'île de Gien and the Îles d'Hyères (Porquerolles, Port-Cros, île du Levant and several smaller islands), also called Îles d'Or (Golden islands), it is one of the widest "communes" of France with 132 km2.

When tourists visit the Côte d'Azur, they most of the time never take care of Hyères and do not visit. Though, from 1820 to 1926, Hyères was the poshiest Winter resort of the Côte d'Azur. It was only after 1926 that Cannes took over, followed by Nice and other places. Because of its history, Hyères has both a very interesting old city center and a fascinating district with the villas and hotels that were built between 1860 and 1930. These two features alone make the city worth a visit.

Besides the city itself, the Presqu'île de Gien, Porquerolles island, Port-Cros island and Levant island are each of them worth a visit. I will build later a page on Porquerolles island.

The Greek settlement of Olbia became later a Roman colony. In 964, the city was known as Eyras. Its harbor was used for the Crusades and King of France Louis IXth (better known as Saint Louis) landed in Eiras in 1254, when he came back from Palestine. Since then, the history of Hyères was troubled. The city was taken over by several along the centuries and the castle dismantled.