IN THIS SECTION
Unfortunately the Quartier Naturiste is not a particularly cheap place to shop, eat and drink. Businesses have to meet their rent and make their profit in an even shorter season than most holiday resorts. This is one reason why so many people self-cater and/or stay relatively inexpensively on the campsite. If you have a car, you will find more variety and better prices for groceries at the Hyper-U supermarket on the right hand side of the road into Agde.
SHOPPING
There are commercial centres in Heliopolis and Port Ambonne and two in Port Nature. There is also a smaller cluster of retailers, including a pharmacy, outside the entrance to the Quartier Naturiste.
In Port Ambonne there is a bank and an ATM, a supermarket, a hairdresser, a butcher, a fishmonger, a cosmetics/beauty parlour, a fish pedicure, a wine shop, a couple of pizzerias and patisseries and lots of boutiques including a BDSM specialist.
In Heliopolis you can find a laundrette, a florist, a hairdresser, a couple of wine shops and patisseries, a beer shop, a newsagent and the usual array of boutiques and accessory shops. The supermarket here is a familiar brand (probably the only time you’ll ever stand naked in a Spar). There’s a traiteur – Raphael’s – that doubles as a butcher/deli and offers warm home-cooked, take-away food and rotisserie chickens among other things.
One of Port Nature’s commercial centres is at the beach end (Port Nature 1). It has a supermarket, fashion boutiques and a lingerie shop, a beauty spa, a sex shop, several accessory and jewellery shops. The other, at the top end (Port Nature 5) doesn’t have a supermarket but it has the greatest concentration of sexy fashion shops and a tattoo & piercing shop.
Cap excels in sexy clothing. Prices are high but the choice is fantastic and you simply can’t get this type of clubwear in the UK. It is almost impossible to resist buying something for that second week when your tan is looking up.
EATING OUT
Food in the Quartier Naturiste used to be a disappointment. The cuisine and the value weren’t what you expect in France. For the classic French dining experience, you needed to travel into the textile part of Cap, Agde or even further afield to towns such as Sete and Carcassonne. It is still a great idea to eat off-campus at least once on your holiday. However, now the Naturist Quarter has nothing to be ashamed of.
For good value fare, nothing touches Ghymnos in Heliopolis. It’s big and has a bustly rather than a bistro atmosphere but there is a very wide choice, the food is all good – they make their own pizzas – and the prices are as low as you can find in Cap. Beware, it’s very popular and unless you come early or book you are likely to end up queuing.
Also in Heliopolis we’d recommend the Lagoon Bleu restaurant and oyster bar. There’s another oyster bar around the corner outside the Jardin du 16 restaurant. There are also Italian and oriental restaurants; a couple of tapas bars and two bakers.
At the bottom end of Port Nature, Mississippi is a very popular restaurant overlooking the beach. Calypso and L’Horizon are two others with beach views in the same area, while Baskin Robbins is a popular cafe further back from the sea. In the arcade beneath is Oasis, an unpretentious eatery that often offers good value lunch deals of the everything-with-chips variety. There’s a supermarket and a pizzeria in this commercial centre too.
In the Colline 5 commercial centre at the other end, we can recommend Waiki Beach, which is justly renowned for its all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. It is superbly sited at first floor level with its own outdoor pool and sunlounge area and is ideal for people-watching at the crowds below. Other restaurants in the vicinity are Le Bistrot, La Arche II, Bagatelle, Le Piment Vert and a pizzeria, La Loca.
In Port Ambonne there several bar/restaurants, a couple of pizzerias and a fish restauarant.
DRINKING
The nightlife capital of Cap is undeniably Port Nature 5. This stubby salient of the Y-shaped building has a row of bars and sexy clothes shops and becomes crowded in the evenings with people seeing and being seen.
The biggest bar which sets the tone for the others is the Melrose, right at the end of the building. It’s very loud, dancing on the tables is de rigueur and the place has such a reputation for women stripping off that people come in from outside for the evening.
This is just about the only place where single men could in theory be a problem, as they can come into the complex without a woman and don’t have to strip off after dark. Surprisingly few take advantage of this and the crowds are always good-natured and mixed-sex. It’s not unknown for women to enjoy making the textile guys salivate.
Giving the Melrose a run for its money is Eros also in Port Nature 5. This is a very popular bar, slightly roomier and less crowded than Melrose with an excellent dancefloor and a solo saxophonist who gets up on the bar and plays most evenings.
From the Melrose the corridor runs through Port Nature 5 – past other bars including Le Look (gay but also popular with straights) – to the space in the angle between two longer arms of the Y. It’s often called Waiki after the prominent Waiki Beach restaurant we mention above, that overlooks it. In the evening this is the nearest thing Cap has to a town square. There are restaurants and shops and street theatre sometimes takes place after dark. This is another popular place for couples to promenade if they want to be noticed and people-watch as couples stream through on their way along the walkways.
Wokkers is an unpretentious British bar in the arcade at the beach end of Port Nature, where there is also a tapas bar.
There are bars as well as restaurants in Port Ambonne and Heliopolis. 1664 in Heliopolis is popular throughout the day and does karaoke in the evening and there are a couple of tapas bars there too.