Porquerolles



Porquerolles (Porcairòlas), also known as the Île de Porquerolles, is an island in the Îles d'Hyères, Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. Its land area is 1254 ha and in 2004, its population has been about 200.

Porquerolles, the largest and most westerly of the Îles d'Hyères, is about 7 km long by 3 km wide, with five small ranges of hills. The south coast is lined with cliffs, and on the north coast are the port and the beaches of Notre Dame, La Courtade and Plage d'Argent.

History
The island's village was established in 1820, with its lighthouse constructed in 1837 and church in 1850. The entire island was purchased in 1912 by François Joseph Fournier, apparently as a wedding present for his wife; he planted 200 ha of vineyards, which produced a wine that was among the first to be classified as vin des Côtes de Provence.

In 1971, the state bought 80 percent of the island to preserve it from development. Much of the island is now part of a national park (the Port-Cros Parc National) and nature conservation area (Conservatoire botanique national méditerranéen de Porquerolles).

Porquerolles is the setting for Georges Simenon's novels Le Cercle des Mahé ("The Mahe Circle") (1946) and My Friend Maigret (My Friend Maigret) (1949) and for the 1964 novel Valparaiso by Nicolas Freeling.

Some scenes of the film  Pierrot le fou , by Jean-Luc Godard (1965) were filmed in Porquerolles.

Since 2010, the island also hosts a jazz festival each summer ("Jazz à Porquerolles").

Climate
Porquerolles has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa). The average annual temperature in Porquerolles is 16.8 C. The average annual rainfall is 605.7 mm with November as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 24.8 C, and lowest in February, at around 10.3 C. The highest temperature ever recorded in Porquerolles was 38.5 C on 7 August 2003; the lowest temperature ever recorded was -10.0 C on 2 February 1956.

Points of interest

 * Conservatoire botanique national méditerranéen de Porquerolles
 * Port-Cros Parc National