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There’s no point going to St Tropez and complaining that it’s expensive. It’s like going to Glastonbury and moaning about the mud. So, I’ll get this out of the way now: St Tropez is the most pricey place I’ve visited – if you flinch at £37 for two drinks in a nightclub, and £47 for 12 minutes in a taxi, forget it.

That out of the way, if you’re willing to throw money at your St Tropez weekend - or week if you’re criminally rich - you’ll have a ball.

The Cote d’Azur resort has been in vogue since the 1950s when Bridget Bardot was filmed in Et Dieu Crea la Femme (And God Created Woman) here. Since then St Tropez has remained the favoured Med retreat of starlets, wannabees and the haves and have-yachts.

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Is the sun setting on the island's party reputation? No - Sam Lewis checks out the new hotels and bars and Sam Lyster the club scene

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What’s behind the resort’s enduring charm is a heady concoction of hip beach bars, sybaritic hotels, chi chi boutiques, and copious see-and-be-seen opportunities. In what other resort’s leading hotel would the most popular room be the one with three huge windows allowing everyone on the pool terrace to see in, as it is in the Byblos.

Let’s begin with the Byblos; for this is where the party started, most famously in 1971 with the wedding celebrations of Mick and Bianca Jagger. Since then it’s been the favoured hotel of any star not staying on a yacht. While the staff are discreet, guests that have made the headlines include Bruce Willis and Naomi Campbell, while more celebrity-spotting can be had at the hotel’s nightclub, Les Caves du Roy.

Every gloriously gaudy feature has been kept intact at St Tropez’s legendary nightspot since it opened – the twinkling lights in the ceiling, the flashing pillars and the private tables groaning under the weight of ice buckets of champagne and spirits. In case you haven’t spotted the celebrity, the DJ announces them, which was Liam Gallagher the night I was there, alongside “shout-outs” for the club’s biggest spenders, young Saudi Arabians.

Of course, the Byblos isn’t the only place to party. Second to kicking your heels on one of the gleaming white gin palaces that tie up on St Tropez’s Quai Jean Jaures, at a cost of thousands of euros per night, there are many nightspots.

Where to drink

The serious revellers start at Nikki Beach, which is 20 minutes outside the town at the Plage de St Jean. Champagne, podium dancing and bikini-clad party girls frolicking on day beds will carry post prandial partygoers through to aperitifs in the town’s many café bars.

The ones lining Quai Jean Jaures are the most expensive, but also the best for people-watching. Rather than face your fellow drinkers, chairs face outwards to the street, like a theatre, or perhaps circus would be more appropriate. Here the spectacle of garish beachwear, dogs in handbags and surgically-enhanced bodies will keep you entertained for hours.

Of the bars along the front, Le Papagayo (tel, 04 9479 2950) is enjoying a renaissance after it reopened in June. Live music, catwalk shows, and cocktails keep the crowd here until late, or there’s Senequier (tel. 04 9497 0090), along the quay, which remains an old favourite for its red director’s chairs and sunset cocktails.

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