Agay is a Lieu-dit located on the Commune Frenchwoman of Saint-Raphaël in the department of the Var.

It is small a Seaside resort at the bottom of roads brood to the feet of the Rastel d' Agay (287m), mountains with the red rocks of the Estérel between Saint-Raphaël (to 9 km in the west) and Cannes (to 35 km in the east).

Agay borders all the littoral of these roads and is leant on the hills which make buttress with the rastel.

History

The origins of Agay go back to prehistory. Its roads, with the favorable geography, make the supposed capital of Oxybiens of it, the tribe Celto-Ligurian which lived then in the solid mass of Estérel, named Ægytna . Indeed no certainty, notwithstanding many prehistoric vestiges and a serious beam of convergent indices.

The Greeks of Massilia attend also these roads which they name Agathon and which gets for their ships a sure shelter thus that a potential of commercial exchanges with the Oxybiens. The Romans also come towards 57 av. J. - C. - after having overcome the united ligure tribes, which are withdrawn in Estérel, far from the littoral - and found a harbor establishment, Portus Agathonis, connected to “via aurélia” (Rome - Narbonne).

Towards 530, holy Honorat settles in the caves of the Holy-Balsam before founding the abbey of Lérins. At the 10th century, the count of Provence, Guillaume the Liberator, fact gift of Agay to the bishop of Frejus, Riculphe. It is not that in 1235 qu' Agay returns to Raymond Beranger IV. At that time, Agay is not inhabited any more following the multiple maritime incursions sarrasines.

It is Richelieu which, by deciding the thickening of the fortifications on the maritime frontage, gives again life with Agay which takes its current name at that time. Two turns, one in Baumette (with the site of the current headlight) are then built and the other in Dramont. A seigniory is born as well as a strengthened castle. The castle is altered then plundered at the time of the Revolution. The garrisons are removed and Agay is attached to Saint-Raphaël.

The 19th century is marked by the arrival of a headlight customs house, and especially of the way of railroad. That allows the exploitation, in Dramont, of the porphyry careers. The whole beginning of the 20th century as for him is marked by the arrival of the road, the now famous “cornice of gold”. Hotels and sumptuous villas are born then as well with Agay as in Anthéor. Famous characters remain in Agay like Guy of Maupassant or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry which there Marie with Consuelo Suncin de Sandoval.

The Second world war marks a turning disfiguring for Agay. The Germans destroy the castle, entirely set fire to Estérel to flush out the maquis there. Then, before the unloading of Provence, the bombardments aiming at the viaduct of Anthéor destroy the majority of the houses as well as the vault. Commandos have, during the night preceding the unloading, due to take Anthéor and Trayas. In Trayas, the troops unload on a mined beach, that will be a bloody failure. The unloading in itself proceeds in the morning on the beach of Dramont. Agay is used then as port for the unloading of the reinforcements.

The Phare of Agay acts as burial with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Economy

At one time, Agay lived forestry development managed now by the National office of the forests, the careers and its farms of which some are still in activity (vines, fruit and vegetables). Henceforth, Agay is primarily turned towards estival tourism especially since the construction of a tourist complex on the heights of the careers of Dramont.

Curiosities

• the fountain of the small prince on the carpark of the shopping mall of Agay beach.
• the headlight of the baumette with its stele.
• the gold cornice and its many creeks.
• solid mass of Estérel and its tops with the splendid panoramic sights.
• the old post office renovated recently, still inhabited today.

Useful bonds