Unless you want to gawp at the stars on Pampelonne beach, or break the bank in the swish boutiques, the picturesque quayside is quintessentially St Tropez.
But how much nicer it would be if you could see it from wherever you happened to be standing nearby.
Unfortunately, the sheer size of some of the yachts berthed there gets in the way of what can be a magical sight. Now I know these vessels, and their owners or charter customers, like very much to be seen in all their opulence. But shows of opulence are not always aesthetically pleasing to others.
This khaki/gold monstrosity, registered in George Town, Cayman Islands, may have been a great place to hold a party, with band and singers, on Saturday night. I did not experience the least envy as I walked by, but I did feel I was looking at an eyesore.
There is probably more street credibiity to be had these days in knocking St Tropez, crowded harbour or otherwise.
It often takes an age to get there by car (although on Saturday, so many people were on the French motorways, stuck in the blackest chassé-croisé of the season, that it was a doddle until the evening).
And if you do not care for those boutiques, or recoil from the cost of their wares, a walk around the little streets of the town, and the Place des Lices, does not need to detain you very long.
Knowing that Sarah Ferguson was there at more or less the same time, and that you might even have bumped into Cindy Crawford, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, isn't the same as getting an invite to Puff Daddy's birthday party.
Nor do I recall rubbing shoulders with St Trop's more famous residents - Brigitte Bardot, for example, or (from just along the road at Gassin) Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis - when picking up a couple of sea bass for the barbecue at Géant.
But I have always been quite fond of the place, exploring those narrow lanes and climbing the hill to the cliffs behind the port. St Trop cannot help being pretty, popular and a magnet for the rich and renowned.
Others will doubtless find those giant ocean-going yachts a delight to see, their occupants providing material for intriguing gessing games. And quaysides equal boats, after all.
But this grumpy old Varois-by-adoption would jump for joy if only the mairie could order the larger ones to be confined to the bay, congested as even that is beginning to look. With the quayside slots reserved exclusively for small craft, St Trop would regain all of its former charm.
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