Port-Cros National Park

Listen for a moment. There is no engine noise here. You hear cicadas in the pines, a halyard tapping a mast in the harbour, and small waves turning over stones. The air smells of resin and warm salt. The ground under your feet is dry, pale earth, scattered with pine needles. This is Port-Cros, a small, steep island off the coast of the Var. It is the heart of one of the oldest national parks in France.

Port-Cros belongs to a chain of islands that people often call the Golden Isles, or the Îles d'Or. Porquerolles lies to the west, and the Île du Levant lies to the east. Some say the name comes from the way the rocks catch the light at certain hours. Of the three, Port-Cros is the wildest. It is also the most hilly and the most green. You reach it only by boat, and that short crossing marks a real change of world.

The national park was created in 1963. It was among the very first national parks in France. It was also one of the first in Europe to protect the sea as well as the land. That second point surprises many visitors. The water around you is part of the park. The seabed, the fish and the seagrass are protected just as strictly as the trees and the trails.

How did a Mediterranean island so close to the busy Riviera stay so quiet? Much of the answer lies with private owners in the twentieth century. A couple named Marcel and Marceline Henry held a large part of the island. They wanted it to stay wild after they were gone. Their wish helped bring the land into public hands and led toward the creation of the park. So the calm you feel today is not an accident. People chose it.

Look now at the harbour. The village is tiny, just a curve of houses in soft ochre, pink and cream, set around a small port. There are a few cafés, a little shop and the park information point. There are no cars on the island for visitors. Paths leave the village and climb almost at once into the forest. Within a few minutes the harbour sounds fade behind you.

Above the village you can see old military buildings. For centuries these islands guarded the approach to the coast of Provence. Pirates, rival navies and passing fleets all made the islands worth defending. The Fort de l'Estissac dates from the seventeenth century, and it is a round, solid stone fort above the bay. Higher up stands the Fort du Moulin, and on the island's summit sits the Fort de la Vigie. Today these walls watch over hikers rather than warships.

Now turn your attention to the trees. Port-Cros is covered with dense Mediterranean woodland. You will see Aleppo pine with its grey, twisted trunks, and dark holm oak. You will also see the strawberry tree, which carries small red fruit with a rough skin in late autumn. Myrtle, heather and rosemary grow along the paths. On a hot day the whole hillside smells like a herb garden. This kind of mature, unbroken coastal forest has become rare on the mainland nearby.

Here is a detail most visitors miss. The island shelters a tiny gecko called the European leaf-toed gecko. It is one of the smallest reptiles in Europe, and it is very discreet. It hides in cracks in the rocks during the day and comes out at night. You will probably not see it. But it is a good reminder that this park protects small and shy creatures, and not only the large animals that make headlines.

The greatest treasure, however, lies under the water. Along much of the coast, the shallow seabed holds wide meadows of Posidonia. This is a seagrass, a true flowering plant, and it lives only in the Mediterranean. Its long green ribbons give shelter to young fish. They also hold the sand in place and help keep the water clear. In autumn you may find brown, fibrous balls of old Posidonia rolled up on the beaches. They are natural, and they are part of the system.

Because fishing and anchoring have been controlled here for decades, marine life has returned in force. Divers come to see large dusky groupers, heavy brown fish with thick lips and calm eyes. These groupers had become rare along much of the French coast. Around Port-Cros, especially near the rocky islet of la Gabinière, they now approach divers without fear. Scientists often point to this as clear evidence that a protected sea can recover.

You do not need diving gear to see some of this world. At the beach of la Palud, on the north side of the island, the park has marked an underwater trail with buoys. With a mask, a snorkel and fins, you can swim along a short route over rocks and seagrass. You may see bream, wrasse and starfish in water of startling clarity. It is one of the simplest and most moving ways to understand why this park exists.

The park today is larger than the island alone. It now includes land on Porquerolles, the islet of Bagaud, and a wide area of the sea and coast around them. Bagaud, the small island just to the west, is a strict nature reserve, and visitors may not land there. The rules on Port-Cros itself are simple but important. Stay on the paths, take your rubbish back with you, never pick plants, and do not light a fire. Each visitor counts on a place this small.

Before you leave, stand still once more and look around you. Notice the colour of the water near the shore, a clear green that turns to deep blue further out. Notice how few buildings you can see, and how the forest comes right down to the rocks. When your boat pulls away, watch the island grow small and dark against the sky. Then think about the mainland coast ahead of you... and what it might have looked like, long ago, before anyone built on it.