Le Luc has a narrow, shady street, with large plane-trees by a fountain, where there are often picturesque groups fetching water.
The Maure Mountains lie to the south, covered with pine, or showing crags of grey and orange rock. The coast-road from Fréjus to Hyères, round the bays of these mountains, is an exquisitely beautiful one, and those who have time should include this in their tour when staying at St. Raphaël or Valescure.
Passing through Le Muy in a serpentine fashion, with a very sharp and narrow turning, the road comes out into the flat alluvial plain of the River Argens, with the pine-clad Estérels on the left as one runs into
FRÉJUS
This is a place of vanished glories, having the atmosphere of ancient importance inseparable from ports abandoned by the sea, which was their life-blood.
Fréjus was the last harbour on the great Roman road from Rome to Provence—the Via Aurelia—which at this point turned inland to Aix. Its importance was therefore seen by Julius Cæsar, who built the town called after him Forum Julii, and now contracted into Fréjus. By the remains to be seen to-day the work appears to have been done hurriedly, for strength rather than beauty, but the interest of the place is scarcely diminished in the knowledge of this probability.
The first most imposing survival is the Amphitheatre. It stands outside the town, and a by-road passes through its longest axis. There is no fencing, nor, indeed, any restriction to the public from climbing the broken tiers of seats; nor has there been any attempt at restoration to the broken arches or the grass-grown arena. On the eastern side of the little town, where the harbour was situated, is a small tower with a conical top, called La Lanterne. This was the Roman harbour-master’s office, and not a lighthouse. The remains of the aqueduct are imposing detached masses of ivy-mantled stonework, ranging like great sentinels across cornfields and meadows to the hills to the north, from whence a pure supply of water was obtained. There are also remains of the walls of the Roman town; of three of the gateways, including the Porta Romana, which is the best; of the two citadels; the baths; and the theatre.
Modern Fréjus has some picturesque doorways and old houses spoilt with stucco. The Romanesque Cathedral has beautiful cloisters, much in need of restoration, and a baptistery with eight monolithic granite pillars from a Roman temple.
ST. RAPHAËL
stands on the opposite side of the alluvial plain, and being on the sea, has lately blossomed into a Riviera resort, with modern hotels, a huge domed church, and new streets of shops and stuccoed houses. It is a dusty and windy place compared to Valescure, a little way inland, on high ground, among the pines of the Estérel slopes.